Oldness

Ours is a system full of myths, if not hoaxes, chief of them age as better qualification for work placement and promotion. It is so as regards placement and promotion of workers in organizations, mostly in the bureaucracy than in private companies. Seniority is given much weight in placement and promotion of personnel in government. Young workers are treated as inept to handle higher positions merely on the assumption that they lack work experience for the tasks attached to such job. Such bias for aged workers disregards education, training and competence to perform the tasks for a given position that younger workers may be in possession of. It gives undue favor to old workers on the baseless presumption that those who had worked ahead in the organization are better equipped for the job.

The presumption that aging in a particular organization is enough for one to be competent more than those who are new on the job is a myth being held sacred as an accepted rule in the bureaucracy on matters of placement and promotion. The practice of giving higher positions in the bureaucracy to senior citizens in the organization had caused so much dysfunction in the bureaucracy. It keeps old schools of thought working for a bureaucracy that needs proactive thinking and innovative ideas that are responsive to the advance technology that had conquered organizations, both in private and in government. Placing olds in high positions that require updated knowledge and skills brought by advance technology is a sure recipe for unpalatable outcomes in terms of performance and productivity.

It is a misplaced notion that oldness in an organization is a factor that ought to be given weight in placement and promotion of workers. Organizations need young, active, healthy and efficient workers that can infuse innovations and increase performance and productivity. Giving high positions to non-performing workers just because they had been in the organization for a long period is not always sound policy. Such disposition that in most organizations had already become tradition deprives not just worthy and competent young workers to attain their rightful place in such high positions. It also deprives the organization the needed vigor from its young workers as well as innovative ideas that are held in abeyance due to overbearing old workers who are domineering in such high positions in the organization.

While wisdom may come as one gets older, competence on the job does not always go with age. Many workers grow old in organizations doing routine work that keeps their knowledge and skills stagnated over the years. Others who are given the chance to perform critical tasks are often overwhelmed and drowned by the challenges attached to a particular position. The worker who ripens in age in an organization had to go through varied coping mechanisms that will carry such worker to the achievement of the performance required by the job. Work experience as the primary basis for old workers to get preferential treatment for place and promotion to higher positions in an organization is simply insufficient as a factor for placement and promotion to higher positions in organizations, particularly the bureaucracy.

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By: Al Ellema

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