This is for HR, its about your 50 year old men, at work, but without their job, keeping a seat warm until something comes up. Some will get work, but there is a subset of this audience, who’s needs are not being met.
They are 30 year employees, have never worked anywhere else, unskilled in job search, but now have the clock ticking while they pull themselves together. Behind them are their family. All this we know, but our strategies to address this remain one-dimensional.
What jobs do we imagine 30 year veterans can get, when the whole industry is rationalising? How much positive energy, for how long, do we expect displaced employees to show when faced with confronting financial and personal risk??
Right now, our strategies do not match the empathy.
What are the challenges these men face? They could include… fear of the unknown, financial pressure, role confusion (breadwinner?), work identity (engineer?), loss of face, self-blaming self-talk or cynical sarcastic leadership knocking, job search drowning, isolation from work colleagues, alcoholism, psychotic episodes, suicide.
Men, this close to disaster, deserve more.
A small minority. What’s the risk?
What’s this about… risk, or empathy, or a community-minded social responsibility.
We can serve these needs, of all parties, better.
