Generating Competitive Advantage from Older Workers London
The workforce is ageing yet research shows that the majority of employers have done little or nothing to change their employment policies and practices in order to adapt and benefit from this. Currently many older employees at all levels retire completely and earlier than they need taking with them valuable skills and knowledge - even though transitional retirement policies could generate significant competitive advantage for employers as this article explains.
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Generating Competitive Advantage from Older Workers
Malcolm Gladwell, in his book The Tipping Point, analyses the processes by which some ideas, trends and behaviours cross a threshold, ‘tip’ and take off, before eventually becoming recognised as a ‘phenomenon’.
Certainly in respect of the future workplace and the role of older workers, everything is increasingly moving towards such a tipping point, to an extent where before too long the majority of employers will be scratching their heads in puzzlement and wondering ‘Why didn’t we see this coming?’
So what’s going on? Well, at present research shows that:
• The majority of workers over 50 either need to, or want to keep working in some form, past traditional ‘retirement age’.
• They want to achieve greater work life balance through working flexibly.
• The 2006 Age Discrimination enabled older workers to request the right to continue working past Default Retirement Age.
• Advances in technology have made worker location less of an issue than in the past, enabling home or remote working, and multi-site working.
A strategic and managed solution
In broad brush terms, in order to introduce change through retaining and recruiting older workers, employers need to rethink:
1. The work that needs to be done in order to achieve desired outputs regardless of how the workforce is organised. This means analysing where the value lies in what you produce and whether your current and future resource can be sufficiently fast moving and flexible in the face of inevitable change.
2. The skills and knowledge required of the workforce regardless of age, seniority, employment status. Ultimately this may involve developing individuals and teams that operate outside of traditional ‘departmental’ or ‘functional’ boundaries.
3. Drafting robust and appropriate contracts of employment which enable the incorporation of individual working practices whilst ensuring all employees adhere to fair and non-discriminatory standards and support the values of the business.
4. Adopting proactive communication systems. Individual employees need to be challenged to be open about their needs and intents for their final working years so that, with their employers, they can help design their ‘best fit’ working life – highlighting the need for changes, as appropriate, as the years progress.
5. Enforcing a rigorous performance management process which is tailored to measure outputs against targets, regularly, fairly and objectively regardless of an employee’s age, status, hours worked or seniority of position or service.
6. Monitoring improvements. No change is easy, but only by monitoring and measuring performance, plus such things as retention and recruitment figures, over time, will the business benefits be proven.
Any organisation - large or small, private or public sector - which develops a core competency in strategic human resource management based on utilising and maximising the strengths and skills of its workers throughout their entire working life, is an organisation which will steal a march on its competitors and stay ahead of the game.
Click here for more information about strategic age management from in my prime.
Certainly in respect of the future workplace and the role of older workers, everything is increasingly moving towards such a tipping point, to an extent where before too long the majority of employers will be scratching their heads in puzzlement and wondering ‘Why didn’t we see this coming?’
So what’s going on? Well, at present research shows that:
• The majority of workers over 50 either need to, or want to keep working in some form, past traditional ‘retirement age’.
• They want to achieve greater work life balance through working flexibly.
• The 2006 Age Discrimination enabled older workers to request the right to continue working past Default Retirement Age.
• Advances in technology have made worker location less of an issue than in the past, enabling home or remote working, and multi-site working.
A strategic and managed solution
In broad brush terms, in order to introduce change through retaining and recruiting older workers, employers need to rethink:
1. The work that needs to be done in order to achieve desired outputs regardless of how the workforce is organised. This means analysing where the value lies in what you produce and whether your current and future resource can be sufficiently fast moving and flexible in the face of inevitable change.
2. The skills and knowledge required of the workforce regardless of age, seniority, employment status. Ultimately this may involve developing individuals and teams that operate outside of traditional ‘departmental’ or ‘functional’ boundaries.
3. Drafting robust and appropriate contracts of employment which enable the incorporation of individual working practices whilst ensuring all employees adhere to fair and non-discriminatory standards and support the values of the business.
4. Adopting proactive communication systems. Individual employees need to be challenged to be open about their needs and intents for their final working years so that, with their employers, they can help design their ‘best fit’ working life – highlighting the need for changes, as appropriate, as the years progress.
5. Enforcing a rigorous performance management process which is tailored to measure outputs against targets, regularly, fairly and objectively regardless of an employee’s age, status, hours worked or seniority of position or service.
6. Monitoring improvements. No change is easy, but only by monitoring and measuring performance, plus such things as retention and recruitment figures, over time, will the business benefits be proven.
Any organisation - large or small, private or public sector - which develops a core competency in strategic human resource management based on utilising and maximising the strengths and skills of its workers throughout their entire working life, is an organisation which will steal a march on its competitors and stay ahead of the game.
Click here for more information about strategic age management from in my prime.