Victoria Tomlinson is on a mission to banish ageism in the workplace

Middling Along

My guest this time is Victoria Tomlinson - chief executive and founder of Next-Up - the company she launched in 2018 (at the age of 63), to help businesses and their employees use the skills and talent of the 50+ generation in new ways, before and after retirement. [Note that our chat was recorded on the eve of the 2024 general election so before the current government was elected!]

A former director at EY, Victoria is a bestselling author and an international speaker on unretirement, personal branding and using LinkedIn strategically as well as on leadership and women on boards. Through Next-Up, she is on a mission to combat age discrimination and get society and employers to value and invest in 50+ employees and use their skills to create the workforce of the future.

Shockingly fewer than 1 in 10 organizations are tackling ageism as part of their EDI strategy and age discrimination is rife.

Victoria quotes hearing from an HR Director at an event that they personally “won’t even look at an applicant’s CV if they’ve worked in one organization for 20-30 years” - and they’re surely not alone… It seems ageism is the one ‘ism’ that no-one is really cracking down on - though Victoria fully expects discrimination cases to increase in the near future.

Despite very well-publicized stats that the share of the population aged 50 and older will increase from 37% in 2020 to 45% in 2050 and widespread skills shortages, many recruiters are still blatantly discriminating against older applicants, and when Victoria posts (as she regularly does) on LinkedIn, she is deluged with hundreds of examples of individuals who have first hand experience of that discrimination.

Next-Up is tackling this in range of ways, with progressive employers, and Victoria mentions a few that are leading the charge, like Unilever (their ‘U work’ model provides a basic contract and benefits, and then employees can contract on top of that for projects of all sizes and shapes that fit with their individual circumstances), and Fullers Brewery who are using Restless to recruit older workers and combat skills shortages.

With multi-generational workforces of five (and soon seven) generations in the workplace, companies need to figure out how to manage the differing needs of older workers as many more are either needing or wanting to stay in work for longer, or to ‘unretire’ - but for whom traditional ‘9-5’ models just do not work.

Victoria also offers her pointers for what older workers can do to ensure that we are not being 'left behind' which include:

• Taking advantage of free courses to upskill in tech, and AI in particular, since older individuals have a key role to play in helping companies better understand AI and the places where it needs to be refined - a huge opportunity;
• Data and cyber risks - again , lots of free courses;
• Being mindful of the language we use: avoid saying things like “oh we didn’t do it like that in my day;”
• Respecting, mentoring, and forging relationships with younger people;
• Being curious and cultivating a growth mindset.

She also shares her advice for finding ‘age inclusive’ employers and her dream for a future where Unretirement means people retain long term relationships with their employers wherein they come back to mentor colleagues, companies make use of their valuable knowledge, and individuals retain purpose and value in their work.

You can find Victoria at https://www.linkedin.com/in/victoriatomlinson/ and Next Up at https://www.next-up.com/

https://restless.co.uk/ is the other organization that Victoria mentions.

Find out more about U Work at https://www.unilever.com/sustainability/future-of-work/future-workplace/

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