"Here’s a strange paradox regarding older workers: On the one hand, they’re 14% less likely to receive the highest annual performance ratings, according to Mercer’s Workforce Sciences Institute. But, those analysts found, business units’ financial and operational performance rise with increased tenure of their workers."
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/are-older-workers-getting-quiet-fired-11666972748
No. They become project managers for products they don’t understand. Then they try to learn GitHub, but stop learning once they’re able to comment on issues. They spam “Can I get an update on this asap?” in every issue even though you can literally track progress in real time. Then they refuse promotions because our skills aren’t “t-shaped enough”. As long as they say “yes” to every person above them, they keep moving up and the ramifications of their utter incompetence are magnified.
Its ironic how the age game never seems to impact the C-Suite filled with old people.
No. They are being promoted to Middle Management positions or are given a title equivalent to "Masters" of their craft. The ones who turn left towards management at the fork in the road typically wanted to stop keeping up with the technology and tools of the company years ago, but they like the culture. The ones who master their craft and continue being practitioners of it are not usually best suited for dealing with people problems. I'm not knocking either and can understand both motivations.
However, this forces early career folks to take orders from (1) a MANAGER who doesn't understand the field they're in and (2) a bunch of MASTER CRAFTSPEOPLE whose roles and authority over them aren't quite clear. Are they mentors? Are they bosses? Etc. Navigating this dynamic is confusing at best, and torture for many.