Managing an ageing workforce

1
Managing an ageing workforce
2
Setting the Scene

• Employees, especially men have been leaving work
  before SPA (this early retirement trend is
  reducing)
• Population ageing
• Increased ratio of years in retirement to years
  in work
• Pressure on pension funds
• Few young people relative to older people
• Skills shortages

Managing an ageing workforce
3
Balance between
Threat
Opportunity

• Avoids squandering the talents of older people
• Ameliorates the skills shortage
• Allows people to save and build up pensions
• Reduces dependency of older people
• Positive effects on health

• Reduction of caring time and support especially
  grandparents
• Reduction in people available for volunteering
• Effect on leisure industry
• Concept of work until you drop / turning the
  clock back
• Retirement as an earned right

Managing an ageing workforce
4
What influences the decision to stay or go?

• Feeling valued at work
• Positive social environment
• Personal mission
• Control and flexibility
• Health status
• Family circumstances
• Caring roles
• Financial circumstances
• Work life balance
• CROW/UniS (2004)

Managing an ageing workforce
5
The Work Situation

• Lack of career development and ongoing guidance
• Limited opportunities for training
• Unsatisfactory experiences at work negative
  attitudes, ageism
• Low job satisfaction and lack of control
• Deterioration in physical and psychological
  health linked to experiences in the workplace
• Lack of control over work time
• DWP (2003)

Managing an ageing workforce
6
PUSH PULL JUMP
Managing an ageing workforce
7
Work adaptation
The continuous and dynamic process by which an
individual seeks to establish a complementary
reciprocal relationship or fit with his or her
job.
JOB
EMPLOYEE
Knowledge Skills Abilities
Needs Values Interests
Educational Gerontology Vol 26 565-582 Yeatts,
D. e. , Folts, W.E. and Knapp, J. (2000) Older
workers adaptation to a changing workplace
employment issues for the 21st century
8
Work adaptation
Organisational factors
Individual factors

• Attitudes towards change
• Knowledge skills
• Health status
• Opportunity to retire
• Family situation

• Management and co-worker support
• Education and training
• H.R. philosophy
• Ageism

9
H. R. Philosophy
Depreciation model
Conservation model
- An individuals value to an organisation peaks
early in his/her career, reaches a plateau at
mid-career, the steadily declines as the worker
ages, towards retirement
- All employees regardless of age are reviewed as
renewable assets that can continue to yield a
high rate of return for long periods of time if
they are adequately managed, educated and trained
10
Heterogeneity (CROW/UNIS 2004)
Choosers
Most amenable to staying in work, mainly male,
managers/ professionals on high income, home
owners. Best qualified fewer than 1 in 10 is
unqualified.
Survivors
In work through financial necessity, have the
least skills and have the least experience of
controlling their working lives.
Jugglers
Mainly women whose work decisions are influenced
by external commitments like family and caring
roles. Need work flexibility.
11
Key steps for employers to create a vibrant age
diverse labour force

• Promote fairness by treating older workers fairly
  no age discrimination
• Improve training, advice and guidance for older
  people
• Offer incentives to stay in the labour market
  e.g. flexible work, financial
• Include older people in performance appraisal and
  management
• Fit job to older workers as well as workers to
  jobs
• Scrutinise all personnel policies because age
  discrimination can occur anywhere in the
  employment cycle

12
Key steps for employers to create a vibrant age
diverse labour force

• Ensure employees can manage change especially at
  50
• Monitor the participation levels of various age
  cohorts in education and training
• Offer career advice including preparation for
  retirement
• Recognise the need for time sovereignty and
  accommodate individual patterns of work to suit
  changing personal circumstances
• Demonstrate that older employees are valued and
  appreciated

13
Organisational benefits (EFA)

• Knowledge sharing
• Hold onto the experience of older employees
• Diversity
• Creates new role models
• Protects the corporate memory
• Reduced staff turnover
• Higher staff morale
• Improved public image
• Access to wider customer base

14
Taylor, P. (2002)

• Perversely, initiatives to encourage the
  employment of older workers may stigmatise them,
  run the risk of deepening age prejudices still
  further and institutionalise age discrimination
• It is difficult to argue for labour market
  programmes for older workers. Instead there may
  be greater value in identifying and removing age
  barriers within existing initiatives and taking a
  life course approach
• www.jrf.org.uk
• Findings D62

15
Web References

• www.agepositive.gov.uk
• www.cipd.co.uk
• www.efa.org.uk
• www.taen.org.uk