If you’ve worked your way from the rank-and-file to high-level management, odds are good that you’ve accumulated quite a skill set and body of experience along the way. But what happens when your employer no longer values your skills and experience?
Are You Too Expensive?
Particularly in a large corporation, even executives can become little more than a number or a cog in the machine. Companies have to pay their older, more-experienced workers more money. And when companies need to cut costs, or just want to maximize profits, they often choose to replace those workers with less-expensive employees or eliminate a highly paid position altogether.
Are You Obsolete?
We also live in a rapidly changing world. Even blue-chip corporations have to adapt to new technologies and new consumer bases. If you’re a VP or CXO in your 50s, you probably haven’t spent much time dealing with Millennial or Gen Z consumers, AI, predictive analytics, or Instagram. But the younger manager coming up behind you has, and it may be just a matter of time before your employer decides their relevance is more valuable than your experience.
In addition, we’re in an economic period where whole industries are undergoing existential changes or shocks, or even disappearing altogether. Older workers who have stayed with one company for decades are especially like to be in a role that is caught up in all this upheaval. Even if your employer values you and wants to keep you around, failures at the business or industry level may leave them with no choice but to let you go. So ask yourself: are you seeing signs that your company or industry may not exist 6 months or a year from now?
What About Age Discrimination?
“But wait,” you say, “isn’t age discrimination illegal?” It is. But saving costs by eliminating or downgrading highly paid positions is not. Nor is replacing a senior employee with a junior one because the younger person has knowledge that is more relevant to the current state of the marketplace or business. Being an older, highly paid employee puts you at risk for both. Even if the company lets you go purely because of your age, you’ll have to undergo a costly, stressful, and protracted legal battle to prove it. And to what end: so you can force them to give you back your job when they’ve shown they no longer want you around?
If you think this could be you, there are various ways to handle the situation. You can go ahead and retire. But in your 50s, you’ve still got meaningful, productive years ahead of you. You can try to brush up on your market knowledge to make yourself more relevant. However, you’ll still be at risk because of your salary and age. Or you can find a job that’s age-proof, where you can earn as much as you want for as long as you want without anyone looking over your shoulder, waiting for the opportunity to push you aside.
Take Control With Franchising
That’s what franchising provides. As a franchisor, you’re the boss. You can run the business full-time or become an executive owner and have more time for your family and hobbies. And you can do it literally for the rest of your life, or just for the next 10 or 20 years. The point is, you get to decide.
Plus, in franchising, your experience is a benefit, not a liability. You can choose a line of business that plays to your strengths and the consumer base you understand, and then you can put your decades of knowledge to work. All the things you learned about business as you came up through the ranks will serve you well as you launch and run your own company.
Best of all? The rewards come straight to you. Your skills and experience no longer serve to pad a corporation’s bottom line–they become a way to build wealth for your family. You also get an opportunity to pay it forward by creating jobs and providing other help for your community.
If you’re ready to be age-proof, my co-consultant Lauri and are here to help. We can counsel you on the risks and rewards of franchising and help you find the right franchise match. We’ll even help you through the launch process and provide mentoring as you grow your business–all at no cost to you. Book a 20-minute call with one of us today, and let’s build the rest of your career together!
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