If you’re an older person who’s still working and hasn’t needed to move into an assisted living facility yet, you might find that you’re often feeling a little uneasy at work. Especially as the workforce seems to keep getting younger and younger, you may find that you feel a bit out of touch with new technology and terminology. However, being older and in the workforce can have some great advantages.

To help you learn how you can use your qualities to help propel you forward, here are three tips for using your age to your advantage at work. 

Tap Into Your Network

As someone who’s been around the block a time or two, you likely have met all kinds of people in your walk of life. This means that you probably have a much larger network of people that you know and can tap into than your younger colleagues do.

To use this to your advantage, make sure you’re keeping in contact with people that you know and have worked with in your professional life. Reach out to them through email or social media occasionally so that you can continue with this relationship and know that you both feel comfortable calling on each other if something in your respective wheelhouses comes up when you’re working. 

Embrace Your Scheduling Flexibility

While you might have needed a more flexible work schedule when you were younger and had a family to raise, now that you’re older, you likely don’t have these same responsibilities that are pressing on your time anymore. This can make you a lot more appealing to an employer that might need people with more flexibility. 

If you’re able to pick up an extra shift here and there or come in or stay late when needed, share with your employer that you’re happy to do this since you’ve already had the times where you needed to take off a bit early for a kid’s game or childcare emergency. These things don’t need to be factored into your schedule anymore. 

Become A Mentor Or Leader

With all of your life experience, there are likely people in your company or on your team that could learn a lot from you. So if there are opportunities within your company to work as a mentor or leader, consider if this could be a good fit for you. Especially if you’ve been in your career for a few decades and know a lot about the industry, try your hand at sharing your knowledge with others that haven’t had the vast experience that you’ve had yet. 

If you want to better use your age to your advantage at work, consider using the tips mentioned above to help you see how this can be done.