(FORTUNE Magazine) – Coot. Codger. Geezer. Fogy. What names we call older people. Of late, however, at least a few smart managers have begun to hit on a more apt appellation. Try ''employee of the year.'' Says John Snodgrass, president of the Days Inns hotel chain, which goes out of its way to hire older workers: ''Corporate America is walking past an unbelievable resource of talent -- reliable, trained, educated.'' Employee- intensive but teenager-starved companies in the food and hospitality business have already got the message; just ask McDonald's or Kentucky Fried Chicken. Soon enough, as the meager size of the baby-bust generation affects other employers, they too should begin to catch on to the value of seniors. By the year 2001, when baby-boomers start turning 55 and the Bureau of Labor Statistics begins counting them as older workers, knowing how to get the best from graying heads -- both hourly workers and managers -- will be a talent critical to any effective executive. You might as well start learning now. Human-resources experts hold out a bonus for making the effort: The skills you develop, they say, will serve you well in managing other kinds of people who will loom ever larger in the work force -- women, for example, and minorities. To get into the spirit of the drill, let's quickly knock in the head a few of the most mindless stereotypes. Conditioned by years of aspirin commercials depicting arthritic oldsters barely able to make it out of bed, you may think of the over-55 set as perhaps a bit less likely to show up for work, particularly on snowy days. In fact, they almost inevitably display significantly lower absenteeism than younger workers, who are more prone to overindulge in drink or take the day off to go surfing at the first hint of sun (just to mention a couple of countervailing stereotypes, hee hee). You may expect your older employees, their physical powers failing, to be especially prone to stick a finger in the buzz saw or fall into the deep-fat fryer. Actually, their accident rate is typically about half that of their juniors, those less-careful slopponis. Ah, but they're so, sort of, down, you maintain. They sit around regretting that the parade has passed them by, infecting co-workers with their sourness. Why, then, on employee surveys, do they consistently score highest in job satisfaction? Other stereotypes require slightly more detailed untangling: Cliche No. 1: Older workers are slower, or at least not as quick on the uptake. Yes, the experts say, over a person's lifetime some cognitive abilities do deteriorate: reaction time, organizational skills in learning complex materials, and working memory, which Georgia Tech psychology professor Anderson Smith describes as the ability ''to engage in on-line processing'' -- for instance, tracking what someone else is saying while at the same time thinking of problems or questions. But that deterioration begins at about age 25.

/ Before you set about firing any of your increasingly decrepit 30-year-olds, understand the other half of the story: As we grow older, we typically learn ways to compensate for our decline in functioning. We take better notes to aid our memory, for instance. As a result, in looking at an older worker's on-the- job performance, it may be virtually impossible to detect any sign of supposedly pernicious cognitive decay. Smith, a former editor of the Journal of Gerontology, cites a study of veteran typists: As they grew older, they got faster. True, their motor skills and reaction time slowed a bit, but they more than made up for this by looking further ahead in the text they were typing. Cliche No. 2: You can't teach an old dog new tricks. Indeed you can, but usually not the same way you teach a pup. Install a 60-year-old in the Corporate Training Center, tell her ''Learn this, learn that -- test at three,'' and she probably won't fare as well as the 25-year-old in the next seat. For one thing, unlike her neighbor, she may not have been in a classroom for 30 years, with predictable effect on her academic learning skills -- and confidence. BUT JUST TRY arranging matters a little differently, more in accord with how she has learned to learn in those 30 years: Help her unlearn the old drill, in part by giving her lots of information on why it no longer suffices. (''Here are the studies that show that ordering people around increases turnover, decreases productivity, and makes us fair game for our predatory foreign competitor.'') Let her proceed at her own pace, providing her with lots of examples as well as experts she can consult when she has questions. Then get out of her way. Professor Frederick DeMicco of Penn State's school of hotel, restaurant, and institutional management notes how McDonald's, which actively recruits older workers, reflects these insights in training them. Under the company's McMasters program, each newly hired senior works alongside an experienced employee, sometimes literally shoulder to shoulder. Only after four weeks is the newly minted McMaster cut loose to operate on his own. Cliche No. 3: Older people aren't as creative. Tell it to Picasso, who churned out a wonderful series of erotic drawings in his late 80s. You, on the other hand, probably just want somebody who can figure out how to keep track of receivables more efficiently, or move boxes off the loading dock faster. Here, older workers may surprise you, particularly if you don't wait until they have put in 35 years before asking them for fresh ideas. Snodgrass of Days Inns reports that brainstorming groups in the senior people's section of the chain's telephone reservation center devised an improved system for tracking operator performance. If you deem sales a creative activity -- solutions to the customer's problems and all that -- know that Days Inns' highest-performing telemarketer, according to Snodgrass, is one Harold Blum, 77. Cliche No. 4: They aren't adaptable, willing to adopt new ways. Indeed, they may be a tad invested in the tried and true, believing that it has served them and the organization well over the years. There's a grain of truth to this stereotype, all the more interesting because it pertains most to older managerial types, about whom precious little systematic research has been done. Professor Siegfried Streufert, a psychologist at the Pennsylvania State University medical school, compared the performance of managers in three age groups: 28 to 35, 45 to 55, and 65 to 75 -- the last more likely to be running their own businesses than serving in the corporate ranks. The effectiveness of the oldest set dropped off the most in one key respect, says Streufert: ''Their capacity for extensive planning diminished, and part of the reason is their tendency to ignore incoming information under normal circumstances.'' The research suggests they become more interested in comparing ideas with their peers instead of listening for drumbeats from the outside world. The professor notes that this defect can be corrected if the older exec is made aware of the problem. Cliche No. 5: They resent being managed by younger people. Older employees don't like to be told what to do, but then, who does? They also appreciate having a little respect shown their years on the job, rather than being treated like some new hire. Companies with a long history of using older workers well -- Travelers, the Hartford insurer, for instance -- have a hard time providing examples of May-November boss-subordinate lineups that proved a problem. If fresh-faced you suddenly find yourself captaining a crew of battle-tested veterans, you may have to take pains to establish your authority, cautions Neal Thornberry, a management professor at Babson College in Massachusetts. Careful here, though: At this critical juncture even more than at others, do be a Participative-Management Do Bee, don't be a Ham-Fisted Hierarchical Don't Bee. Consult with the folks, seeking their advice, drawing on their considerable experience. If anyone remains recalcitrant, to the extent of trying to undermine you, confront him or her privately, one on one. A TRULY intelligent younger manager will discern what a sweet deal he has in the form of his older subordinates: Odds are that most no longer are bucking for promotion, or for his job. They are less likely to embarrass him by quitting. And they represent a trove of information, particularly, the experts say, on the company's history, accumulated wisdom, and informal organization -- where the bodies are buried, who's really on first, what worked in the past and why. If he is duly considerate, Junior may even be able to entice one of these wise heads to -- pardon the expression -- mentor him. And what does the older worker want in return? Not money so much -- he may already be near the top pay levels in his grade, which is why in any cutback companies too frequently jump to offer him an early-retirement package. No, often he merely seeks recognition: a request for his advice on tough decisions, an occasional bow to his expertise, a pat on the back, as public as possible. (Why do so many otherwise smart managers assume that workers over 40, especially men, no longer need to be told they're doing a good job?) In this sense and others, as many of the experts observe, he just wants to be treated like everybody else. Once you digest all this, it may dawn on you that the real managerial challenge is to keep this asset from retiring. Some guidance on that front: Understand the main reason most people retire. It isn't to stop working, concludes Georgia Tech's Smith, based on national surveys he has conducted. Rather it's to gain greater control over how they spend their time. If you can offer the would-be retiree an arrangement to provide that, you stand a better chance of keeping him. This may mean some sort of consulting deal, or job sharing, or flexibility about how much time he spends in the office. Professor Gerald Graham of Wichita State University observes that many older people prefer nine months on, three off. Gotta put in that time in the South of France, after all. With such a system installed, your only remaining managerial challenge will be to contain the envy of younger co-workers. Remind them that they can't afford that much time off. Not yet, at least.