How age-inclusive is your workplace?

Despite hybrid work opening up opportunities for flexible and remote working, older workers (aged 50+) continue to be pushed out of the workplace.

Results from the Government’s Work and Health Programme show that just 13% of participants aged 60+ find a job within two years of searching, compared to 30% of 18-24 year olds. And almost a third of people aged 50-69 have experienced age discrimination when looking for work.

Yet with the state pension age due to rise to 67 by 2028 our workplaces, engagement strategies, and recruitment practices need rethinking to support longer working lives.

Are we experiencing the Great Unretirement?

The Great Unretirement is used to describe a growing trend for people over 50 returning to paid employment from retirement. However, according to the Centre for Ageing Better, the term isn’t strictly true.

The latest data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) does suggest that people aged 50-64 are coming back to work. However, it also shows that these workers were more likely to have lost their job in the first place than made a positive choice to retire.

So why are we seeing older people returning to work and staying there longer? It seems that the cost-of-living crisis is the main factor. The suspension of the state pension triple lock meant that the state pension only increased by 3.1% in 2022, while inflation increased at 9.4%. Rising bills mean that employment is the best solution for older people facing financial struggles.

Business impact of an ageing workforce

Multigenerational workforces bring plenty of benefits for organisations including experience, skills, loyalty, and productivity. Below are some of the reasons to embrace an ageing workforce.

• Good for business performance

The OECD estimates that giving older employees more opportunities to work could raise GDP per capita by 19% over the next thirty years.

• Talent shortages mean we must expand the talent pool beyond ‘youth’

The population balance, with 300,000 fewer workers under the age of 30 and 1 million more workers age 50+ within 20 years, means we must broaden our recruitment sights.

• Our customers are ageing too

Matching our employee profiles to our customers ensures we keep aware of customer need and can serve them better.

• Older workers are no less productive

Research from the US suggests that “there is likely to be little net effect of changes in the age distribution on productivity … over the next two decades.” This research balanced considerations such as the impact of increased experience in the workforce versus reliance on new technologies, which older workers may not keep up with.

Employer-measured productivity revealed that older workers have higher productivity, with sales forces and production lines being cited as worker populations that have increased productivity with age.

• Younger workers are substantially more likely to move jobs than older workers

The Resolution Foundation showed employees aged 50+ were over 4 times less likely to move jobs compared to the 18–29-year-old age group. The increased loyalty translates into deeper, broader expertise for employers and more predictable, lower turnover.

• Older workers have a wealth of experience to share

As Helen Kewell, Director at Muuto Consulting, says, “Employers that focus on retaining their older workers will deepen the skills and experience held within the organisation, as well as offering the possibility of transferring those skills through leading and mentoring others. It’s what the organisational version of an elder culture could look like and it’s a stage of life that people often find rewarding.”

Examples of multigenerational workforces

1. John Lewis – Almost one-quarter of the workforce is now aged over 56. The retailer improved its appeal for older workers by allowing flexible hours to accommodate caring responsibilities.
2. McDonalds – Launched a recruitment campaign targeting older workers.
3. Frog – Social network Frog regularly advertises for ‘senior interns’ to coach, train, and support junior colleagues
4. Unilever – Unilever’s U-Work model seeks to combine flexibility and security and is designed to support ‘perennials’ (workers over-50).
5. Saga – offer ‘Grandparents Leave’ so employees can take a week of paid leave to celebrate the birth of a grandchild

Which different generations make up the 2023 workforce?

While there is little science to support the idea of generational differences and preferences, understanding the age diversity of your workplace is still helpful.

Generations tend to be groups of people born within a 15-year span, so can be used to observe changes over time and how these might affect the employee experience.

The generations at work today:

• Baby Boomer – People born from 1946 to 1964, during the mid-20th century baby boom.
• Gen X – Anyone born between the years 1965 and 1980.
• Millennials – Also known as Generation Y, millennials are born between 1981 and 1996.
• Generation Z – Born between 1997 – 2010.

Next up is Generation Alpha which includes anyone born between 2011 – 2024.

How employers can recruit, engage and retain an ageing workforce

Research into ageing workforces and productivity highlights physical safety, psychological safety and workload demands as key factors affecting the output of the workforce.

Physically, we can improve our workplaces, for example, with stairs with banisters, places to sit and rest and easy-to-access physical storage. Here’s an excellent example of how BMW have adapted their production lines for highly skilled older workers.

Culturally, we can think about how stereotypes (of all age groups) are negatively impacting policy, inclusivity and employee experience. Age discrimination, age shaming and ageing stereotypes are everywhere, from adverts for skin cream and hair dye, to surveys that segment us into “young” and “old”.

In communications, we must consider how we use language and images to portray employees and customers in recruitment, product and service advertising and internal communications. See the Centre for Ageing Better’s excellent resources on Good Recruitment for Older Workers.

How to tackle ageism in recruitment

As part of your Diversity and Inclusion strategy, it is important to review your recruitment policies and processes and remove the potential for ageism.

Currently only 1 in 6 employers have firm plans to create age-inclusive policies in the near future and, as we mentioned above, there is evidence that workers aged between 50-64 are experiencing age discrimination when looking for work.

5 examples of age-inclusive hiring processes:

1. Blind recruitment – Use a hiring platform that anonymises candidate profiles or replace CVs with an assessment designed to test how candidates would do in the role.
2. Inclusive wording – Avoid mentioning age, age-related criteria, or minimum number of years of experience in job adverts. Also be wary of dismissing candidates as ‘over-qualified’, which is too often a sign of ageism in the workplace.
3. Gather data to track progress – Data on age is needed to track how well your organisation is doing at building a multi-generational workforce but tell candidates why you are collecting this data and that it will only be used at an aggregate level. Use a separate section of the application to capture this so it will never be seen by the interviewing panel.
4. Focus on skills – Rather than mention proficiencies in certain software or platforms, focus on the core skills required for the role. You can provide training for the rest.
5. Rethink culture fit questions – Look for what someone can add to the culture, rather than how well they might fit into what’s there already. An older candidate is unlikely to pass a ‘culture fit’ test in a company of younger staff, but this difference will mean they bring something unique.

Do older workers feel included in your organisation?

Assess Diversity and Inclusion for all employees today. People Insight help organisations of all sizes and sectors measure D&I and use the insights to create a more inclusive workplace for employees from every background.

Speak to us today to see a demo of our employee experience platform and our Diversity & Inclusion survey framework.