Novel ideas at Borders lure older workers

Borders' decision to actively recruit older employees goes beyond the much-ballyhooed shortage of employees hitting the US, says Workforce Management.

In the late 1990s, as online bookselling was sweeping the US, Borders took a hard look at the demographics of its customer base. It discovered that consumers aged over 45 purchased half of the books bought in the US. To reach out to those customers and differentiate itself from the impersonal online bookseller, Borders devised a formal hiring and retention initiative aimed at older workers, Dan Smith, senior VP for human resources, told Workforce Management.

Today, 16% of Borders' workforce is over the age of 50, up from 6% in 1998, when it started its recruitment effort.

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Title: "Novel ideas at Borders lure older workers", by Jessica Marquez, Workforce Management, May 2005.

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Posted 10 May 2005