Valuing Experience

Designing work for older workers

Sometimes older workers can’t work the way they may have been able to do when they were younger. Sometimes they simply no longer want to. This may be due to the personal costs of working that way, or because they are now in a position to make choices and they are doing so.

Ensuring that work is less taxing in the way it is organised and carried out will be good for older employees. Usually it will be good for others as well.

Physical demands
Some jobs are physical and always will be so, requiring strength, resilience and stamina. However, organisations are becoming increasingly smart about reducing or managing these physical demands so they reduce the risk of injury and physical burnout whilst being more likely to retain the experience they need. People are then able to keep on doing the job as they age without the personal costs.

Techniques used by these organisations include:
• Increased use of equipment
• More effective training on techniques for doing the work in a less physical way
• Increased safety measures
• Better pacing of work and use of breaks
• Planning work to spread the physical demands
• Giving workers longer periods to recuperate
• Using teams to carry out work so the load can be spread and the specific skills of individual team members better utilised
• Getting older workers to undertake more maintenance or planning work, where their experience and problem solving can be utilised with reduced physical demand
• Pairing older workers with younger workers, who can learn from the older worker’s experience, whilst shouldering a greater burden of the physical demands.

Genesis Energy has successfully used this last technique, pairing younger maintenance people with older engineers. They are clear though that both partners need to be able to contribute in a meaningful way. It has to be real work. This is important so that the younger people do not feel unfairly treated and the older people still know they are making a genuine contribution.

Physical environment
Even where work is not physically strenuous, it can still place physical demands on people. Working in noisy environments, sitting long hours at a computer, repetitive movements. Good ergonomic design will help prevent many problems that in the past have restricted older workers from continuing in specific roles. There is also an increasing array of technology, often at fairly minimal cost, for addressing difficulties associated with hearing, sight, mobility or computer usage. Better understanding of exercise and stretching also helps, along with encouragement from employers to incorporate this into the work day.

Workloads
Workloads and working hours can also discourage older workers, workers that employers want to keep and find hard to replace. This is not about keeping employees to maintain numbers. It is about finding ways that employees can stay and want to stay, whilst maintaining their energy, enthusiasm and interest. Approaches used by these employers include:
• Reviewing the work demands – how tasks need to be done, when they need to be done and even if they need to be done
• Using team work to spread the responsibility and allocate work to suit people’s individual strengths
• Adjusting working hours to avoid peak travel times, and hence shorten people’s working day
• Reorganising hours to give people greater recuperation time, such as nine-day fortnights
• Finding opportunities for people to work from home
• Providing people with greater choices in shifts and rosters so they are more likely to find a work pattern they can sustain
• Making greater use of part-time work and job sharing
• Bringing in additional workers to relieve pressure and to plan for succession.

Shifts and work patterns that have suited your employees in the past, may no longer be as satisfactory to them as they get older.

Stress and emotional pressures
Cumulative stress and emotional pressure can discourage some older workers from wanting to continue in roles where they have contributed successfully in the past. Those who have options may chose to do other things. Those who don’t, may no longer be able to sustain their enthusiasm or performance. Either way, employers lose. Strategies used by employers to find mutually beneficial solutions for the company and the employee include:
• Providing opportunities to allow them step back from the pressures, either for a specified period of time or permanently. Examples include: undertaking key projects; relationship roles where the employee’s experience is valued, but the pressure is not as great; or trouble shooting or quality control roles where their experience is utilised, but the day to day pressure is reduced.
• Utilising experienced workers in coaching, mentoring or development roles.

Such strategies as these have been used successfully by Orion to hold on to specialist engineering knowledge.

These strategies can be applied reactively when problems arise, but they are more likely to be effective and accepted when they are proactive – planned in advance and put in place early.