The Role of Older Adults in the Workplace - An Ageist Series (3 of 3)

15
Aug 2024
CPHR Alberta
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A network of people connected by lines on a gray background.

Author : Manley Osbak 

Ageist stereotypes are a fallacy, not only because they mischaracterize people, but because they obscure the underlying concern of competition that is the principal motivation behind such stereotypes. Common approaches to combatting ageism are paradoxically ageist themselves, as they often emphasize egalitarian motives rather than acknowledging the social capital that older adults bring to the workplace. Older adults enhance workplace functionality by balancing competitive and cooperative values, and they play a crucial role in developing others organically through intergenerational exchange and citizenship behaviour. Considering the ongoing demographic shift, and the inevitability of aging, it’s imperative that we understand and incorporate the strengths that older adults bring to the workplace.

Life is a continuous process of loss and gain. As we progress through different stages of life, our resources continually evolve, prompting us to modify our goals while minimizing losses and maximizing gains. According to the selection, optimization, and compensation model of adult development, loss is experienced throughout our lives, but so is gain. While egalitarian arguments promote a polite response to the losses, they fail to recognize and leverage the gains. 

Erik Erikson, a prominent 20th-century psychoanalyst, created a theory of life-span development that comprised of eight (later nine) stages. The seventh stage, which Erickson considered the key development of adulthood, was characterized by generative action. Generative acts are those that create, maintain, and offer benefits for the next generation, nurture individuals, and produce outcomes with communal benefits. These actions serve to enable, promote, establish, guide, and contribute through conservation, restoration, preservation, cultivation, and maintenance. Generative acts also preserve cultural continuity over time by enacting rituals, linking generations, and ensuring cultural continuity.

Generativity reflects a fundamental optimism about human potential. It is rooted in hope, a psychosocial strength that originates from the earliest of Erikson’s developmental stages. The concept of generativity incorporates the strength of fidelity, which develops in healthy adolescent growth. In the generative stage, the strength of care comes to the foreground, reflecting the capacity to care for what a person has learned to care about. With hope understood as an expectant desire, fidelity as commitment, and care as the dedication to nurture, the foundations of generative action are grounded in belief, commitment, and concern, making it emotionally significant.

Erikson associated the rise of generativity with the onset of middle adulthood. This association intriguingly aligns with the findings of Stanford psychologist Laura Carstensen, who noted a substantial increase in the importance that adults place on socioemotional information and emotionally salient outcomes in mid-life. Similarly, Canadian labour statistics for 2022 reveal a 31% drop in labour force participation among individuals aged 55 to 65. While some may attribute this trend to early retirement, we know that people remain in workplaces that reflect their values. The 31% drop in Canadian labour suggests a profound misalignment between the values of mid-life adults and prevailing workplace values.

If the workplace emphasizes instrumentality and assesses the value of people based solely on their immediate contributions to instrumental outcomes, it becomes clear that these workplace values would not align with the generative values of older adults. Older adults, experiencing a shift in priorities towards generativity and socioemotional goals, may find such environments unfulfilling or even alienating. This disconnect can contribute significantly to their withdrawal from the labour market. Recognizing and addressing this misalignment is crucial to fostering a workplace that is not only inclusive – but is strategically inclusive for a purpose.

Creating a workplace that is more inclusive of older workers should not be viewed as an expression of egalitarian ideals, but rather as a recognition of the strategically valuable strengths that older workers add to the social capital of the organization. The generative interests of older adults exemplify a communal orientation, focused on contributing to the development of others and enhancing the social context that underpins human development. It is crucial to understand that unmitigated instrumentalism is not conducive to sustainable and scalable production. Sustainability and scalability can only be achieved when instrumental and competitive values are balanced by constitutive and cooperative values because the resulting balance permits the social structures that promote individual growth and commitment.

Our objective is not merely to be more inclusive. Our objective is to be more effective. To do so, we have to move beyond the unconscious primordial concerns expressed in ageist stereotypes, transcend the toxicity of unmitigated instrumentalism, and fully recognize the generative value of the social dimension within the workplace. It’s essential to understand the role of older adults and generative action in developing social capital and transmitting value across this social dimension. Creating an age inclusive space doesn’t mean simply adjusting to the presence of older adults, it means actively leveraging their unique contributions to foster a more dynamic, sustainable, and productive work environment. By doing so, we can transform our workplaces into functional communities that utilize the full spectrum of human potential and drive collective progress.

The views and opinions expressed in this blog post belong solely to the original author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of CPHR Alberta.

Manley Osbak is a Workforce Development Specialist with Work Locomotion where he leads the development and delivery of supervisor training. As a Certified Training and Development Professional with over 25 years of experience in the energy, construction, and manufacturing sectors, Manley focuses on helping supervisors master their roles in an increasingly complex operating environment. Having authored and coauthored numerous journal papers and trade magazine articles, Manley is well known for his investigative approach and crisp delivery. Connect with him on LinkedIn and access his current work on worklocomotion.Substack.com.

The views and opinions expressed in this blog post belong solely to the original author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of CPHR Alberta.



Before the Title: HR's Role in Growing Leadership Capacity

By Jessica Jaithoo • August 19, 2026
Author: Kanwaljit Chaudhry We often begin developing leaders after we have given them something to lead. Someone is promoted into their first supervisory role. They join a leadership development program, receive coaching, attend workshops, or are paired with a mentor. All of these can be valuable. But by then, leadership development has already been happening. Long before the title arrives, people are learning how to exercise judgment, influence others, navigate disagreement, take responsibility and make decisions when the answer is not obvious. The question for HR is: Do we have to wait for the title to help those capabilities grow? Create opportunities, not just programs Some of the most valuable leadership development happens through work itself. A stretch assignment. Leading a small project. Presenting an idea to senior colleagues. Coordinating people who do not report to you. Navigating competing priorities. Being trusted to make a decision rather than simply carrying one out. None requires a management title. HR can help organizations look at development as not only as courses people attend, but as experiences people need. That may mean encouraging managers to distribute meaningful opportunities rather than repeatedly turning to the person who is already proven. It may mean designing project work so different employees have opportunities to lead. It may mean making mentoring, coaching or job-shadowing available before someone enters a formal leadership pipeline. The objective is not to make everyone a manager. It is to give more people opportunities to build capabilities that will serve them whether or not formal leadership is their eventual destination. Make room to learn from experience Experience alone does not necessarily create development. Two people can go through similar experiences and take very different things from them. What often makes the difference is the opportunity to reflect: What worked? What didn't? What did I notice about myself? What would I do differently next time? HR can help make those conversations part of development rather than leaving them to chance. A manager checking in after a difficult project can ask more than, “Did we deliver?” A mentor can help someone examine why a conversation went differently than expected. A performance discussion can explore not only what someone accomplished, but how they influenced others, exercised judgment or responded when things became uncertain. These are relatively small interventions. But they help turn experience into learning. Notice leadership before it becomes obvious There is another role for HR: helping organizations broaden what they notice. Potential does not always announce itself loudly. The person who volunteers to coordinate a complicated piece of work may be demonstrating leadership capacity. So might the employee who brings people together when a team is stuck, asks the question no one else is asking, helps a colleague succeed without needing credit, or remains thoughtful when everyone else is rushing toward an answer. If we look for leadership potential only among those who already resemble our current leaders, we may keep finding the same kinds of people.  Creating broader opportunities allows capability to become visible before we decide who has it. Pay attention to what the organization teaches Organizations are also developing future leaders when they are not deliberately trying to. Employees notice who gets promoted. They notice what behaviour gets rewarded, whose ideas receive attention and what happens when someone makes a mistake. They notice whether managers share information or protect it, whether difficult conversations are avoided or handled respectfully, and whether asking for help is treated as good judgment or weakness. These observations become lessons about what leadership looks like here. HR influences many of the systems through which those lessons are reinforced e.g., performance management, recognition, development, succession planning and promotion among them. That makes an important question worth asking: What are our people learning about leadership from the way our organization actually works? The answer may tell us as much about our leadership pipeline as any competency framework. Before the title Leadership development does not have to begin with a leadership program. It can begin when someone is trusted with something slightly beyond what they have done before and supported while they figure it out. It can happen when a manager shares the reasoning behind a difficult decision rather than only communicating the outcome. It can happen when someone gets to lead a project before they have people reporting to them. And it can happen when an employee has someone who helps them make sense of an experience rather than simply move on to the next task. HR cannot manufacture leaders. But HR can help create workplaces where people have opportunities to practise judgment, responsibility, influence and reflection long before a title makes those things part of their job description. Perhaps the question is not only “Who are our future leaders?” It is also: “What are we doing today that gives future leadership capacity a chance to emerge?”

What HR Leaders Are Telling Us Their Organizations Need Right Now

By Marina Perkovic • July 22, 2026
At the CPHR Alberta Conference, we asked HR leaders one question: What leadership capability matters most for the future of your organization? Leaders picked up a star and placed it beside their answer. By the end of the conference, HR leaders cast 131 votes across 16 capabilities. Three stood out, with two tied for first place. Here is what they told us. What the Data Showed The capabilities on the board came from Bright Wire's PLUS Leadership Framework, a proprietary model built to define what effective leadership looks like across every level of an organization and is organized across four dimensions: Courageous Coach-Like Disciplined for Results and Relational The results below reflect the capabilities HR professionals believe matter most. 

The Business Case for Sleep: What HR Professionals Need to Know

By Jessica Jaithoo • July 9, 2026
Author: Robin Daultani Mental health support. Fitness benefits. Stress management resources. Workplace wellness programs have evolved significantly over the past decade. Yet one foundational pillar of employee health and performance remains conspicuously absent from most wellness strategies: sleep. The cost of this gap is staggering. A landmark RAND Corporation study¹ found that insufficient sleep costs the Canadian economy up to $21.4 billion annually, through a combination of absenteeism and reduced productivity. A Gallup study² reinforced this finding, showing that poor sleepers report more than double the rate of unplanned absences compared to other workers. And a 2026 Wellhub study³ found that 83% of employees identify poor sleep as a contributing factor to burnout, a figure that demands attention when nearly nine in ten employees report burnout symptoms annually. Consider what this looks like in practice. A team member who slept poorly scrolls through emails at 7am already feeling behind. By mid-morning, a decision that should take minutes stretches into a 45-minute deliberation. After lunch, focus drops sharply, not because of the workload, but because the brain is running on insufficient rest. By 3pm, a second coffee masks the fatigue but does nothing for the impaired judgment underneath. Research shows that after 17 hours of continuous wakefulness, the equivalent of a normal waking day ending at 11pm, cognitive impairment matches that of someone who is legally intoxicated⁴. This is not an unusual day. For many employees, this is every day. Sleep rarely appears on the wellness agenda, leaving a significant and measurable performance gap unaddressed. The reason is partly cultural. Sleep is still widely perceived as a personal responsibility. But the research suggests otherwise: sleep is not a personal indulgence. It is a performance lever that affects every metric HR professionals are already tracking: productivity, absenteeism, burnout, and retention. The same RAND study¹ that quantified the cost of insufficient sleep also found the flipside: if Canadians who sleep under six hours started sleeping just one hour more per night, it could add $12 billion to the national economy. The returns are not theoretical. They are measurable, achievable, and waiting to be captured. The good news is that addressing sleep does not require a major overhaul of existing wellness programs. Organizations can start by simply putting sleep on the wellness agenda. Most workplace wellness surveys ask about stress, mental health, and physical activity. Adding questions about sleep quality or duration to existing wellness assessments can provide baseline data to identify and measure the scope of the issue within their workforce. Leaders and managers who openly prioritize rest and recovery give permission for the rest of the organization to do the same. Small cultural shifts like discouraging late-night emails or respecting boundaries around after-hours communication can quietly improve sleep conditions across an entire team. None of these require a budget. They require intentional inclusion. Now consider what becomes possible. A team member, after two weeks of consistent, quality sleep, arrives at work already focused. The mid-morning decision is made in minutes. The afternoon dip is manageable, not debilitating. The second coffee becomes optional, not essential. Nothing else about their workload or responsibilities has changed. They show up more empathetic and more present for their customers, peers, and family. The only difference is how well they slept. The performance gap between these two versions of the same employee is not marginal. It is the difference between surviving and thriving. The question for HR professionals is no longer whether sleep affects organizational performance. The research has answered that definitively. The question is whether sleep has earned a place in their wellness strategy. And if not, what that gap is quietly costing their organization.
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