Hachette UK's AgeWise network advocates the benefits of an intergenerational workforce

If you are aged 35 right now you are likely just halfway through your career. In the generations following mine it will be ordinary to work until you are 70 and, should you want, beyond. The workplace is in a dynamic revolution.

As a woman in her sixties, I can remember when there was another tipping point where more than 50% of women went out to work and it altered the nature of the workplace forever. Since 2011 with the end of the mandatory retirement age, we’re in another period of dramatic change: currently, over 30% of the workers in the UK are over 50 and that percentage is set to rise.

 

Lennie Goodings, Virago Chair and former co-Chair of AgeWise

 

Recently Hachette UK’s staff network, AgeWise, commissioned Nielsen to do a special in-depth study of readers over 45. The data shows what many of us knew anecdotally: in 2022, readers over 45 spent nearly £990 million pounds on buying 145 million books, which is 41% (volume) 40% (value) of all books sold in the UK. This group buys 46.5% (value) of all hardbacks, 48.5% of fiction, 52.7% of nonfiction, and 56.3% (volume) and 44.1% (value) of all e-book purchases.  Authors over the age of 50 write a vast number of the books published and it makes business sense for our workforce to reflect our readers.

At Hachette UK, we formed the AgeWise network with the mantra: Proud to be an Intergenerational Company. We’re not pitching old vs young; our crucial point is that to thrive, the publishing industry must be as intergenerational as its readers and writers.     

We first called ourselves `Ageless’. A network of over 200 people, our mission is to counteract society’s ageism and to focus on the huge benefits of an intergenerational workforce. But our choice of name undercut us – we too were embodying denial by seeming to agree that `age is just a number’, `you’re only as old as you feel’ and `to be ageless’ is the goal. But it’s not at all what we know and feel.   

So, we became AgeWise: a proud, honest, and upfront name that says why we believe our contribution is essential. While publishing is finally awake to the fact that we are woefully behind in mirroring the diversity of our UK readership, our contention is that diversity must include age. We believe both an intersectional and intergenerational staff is the key to success.

At Hachette UK, we have received a wonderful response from staff and the leadership team and we have a collective understanding that there is work to do. We also know our staff: 19% of our workforce is over 50. AgeWise thinks, to represent our readership and to keep parity with the UK workforce, that percentage should be higher and the Hachette UK Board agrees. Crucially, our idea of a balanced company is that the over 50s should be throughout the company, not just at senior levels. To help achieve this, Hachette UK is actively working to recruit more people over 50 into all roles. Without the experience of older staff, we are potentially missing an opportunity in understanding how we reach and sell even more to older readers.

AgeWise at Hachette UK is unique. We have vigorous and productive dialogues with management. We have a 10-point manifesto. We have held over 300 individual mentoring sessions. We are helping people over 50 feel visible and recognised for their experience and knowledge. We give back to the company and we have plenty to give – and we know stuff!

By Lennie Goodings, Virago Chair and former co-Chair of AgeWise, sits on the AgeWise committee, now chaired by Juliet Ewers and Peta Nightingale.

 

About Hachette UK

Our mission at Hachette UK is to make it easy for everyone to discover new worlds of ideas, learning, entertainment and opportunity.

We are one of the UK’s largest publishing groups, with 12 autonomous divisions and over 50 imprints with a rich and diverse history. We are the market leader in e-books and publish a range of bestsellers in audio format, the fastest-growing part of our business.

We publish thousands of new books across the group every year and our authors include Michael Connelly, Alice Oseman, John Grisham, Val McDermid, Stephen King, Stieg Larsson, Nelson Mandela, Stephenie Meyer, Ian Rankin, J.K. Rowling and Malala Yousafzai.

Our award-winning adult publishing divisions are Little, Brown, Orion, John Murray Press, Dialogue Books, Hodder & Stoughton, Headline, Quercus, Bookouture and Octopus. Hachette Children’s Group publishes a diverse range of books for children of all ages and Hodder Education is a market leader in resources for both primary and secondary schools. In 2022, we welcomed Paperblanks, the second-largest premium stationery brand in the world, to our group.

We have offices around the UK, including our headquarters in London and the Hely Hutchinson Centre (HHC) for distribution in Didcot. We have subsidiaries in several other regions, including Australia, India, Ireland, Jamaica and New Zealand.

 

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