Valuing Experience
Developing a practical responseThere is no one way to develop a response to this issue. However, the organisations that have been most successful have found it useful to develop a cohesive multi-faceted approach. Some do it under the umbrella of a specific policy on older workers, others don’t feel the need for a policy but develop a cohesive strategy for recruiting and retaining older workers. Some choose instead to systematically apply the ‘lens’ of age to their general policies to ensure they work for all employees.
The following explores some of the questions organisations had to consider in deciding which approach was most relevant to them.
How explicit do we want to be about focusing on older workers?
It is useful to focus attention on older workers to raise awareness of the issues and prompt action. However, your responses to the issue must be lawful. The Human Rights Act (1993) includes age as one the grounds on which direct and indirect discrimination is unlawful. Since 1999 there has been no upper age limit for age discrimination, and hence compulsory retirement is unlawful. As well, you cannot replace discrimination against older workers with discrimination against younger workers.
As part of a multinational company, ANZ National work closely with their global parent on their talent-management practices. The Australian business has recently taken steps to provide workers over the age of 50 with an automatic right to increased flexibility. ANZ National has explored this programme’s merits for local use and have adapted it alongside New Zealand legislation. ANZ National’s approach to flexible work is not targeted at a specific age group – the focus is on providing all staff with options to discuss and agree flexible working arrangements, while ensuring business outcomes are met.
Nor do you want to disadvantage older workers with an explicit focus on their age. If the organisation is not genuine in valuing older workers, this could make them more vulnerable. Focusing on older workers is useful for analysis, policy making or discussing the issue generally, particularly in larger organisations. Take care, however, in applying the term to individuals, or asking people to identify with the label.
Many organisations find it useful to develop strategies that encompass the whole of people’s working lives, whilst acknowledging that people’s aspirations, needs and expectations will vary at different ages. This is their rationale for putting a specific focus on the needs of older workers, particularly when it is a group that has been neglected in the past. In focusing on older workers though, you will need to make it clear that this is not at the expense of other employees.
How proactive do we want to be?
Put simply, there are three different levels that organisations typically work on to address this issue.
1. Preventing discrimination
This is the most basic level. It requires organisations to ensure that none of their policies and practices either directly or indirectly discriminate against older workers. Although few organisations deliberately discriminate, some practices can unintentionally discriminate. There may not be a policy that says that older workers can’t access training, but managers’ attitudes and practices may result in only younger workers getting the opportunity. It may be that all employees are expected to undertake a regular assessment of their physical fitness and strength, but if aspects of the test have no relevance to the actual work, then older workers can be disadvantaged. A discrimination prevention strategy requires regular reviewing, and if necessary adjustment, management practices related to recruitment, selection, training, performance management and promotion.
2. Ensuring the full contribution of your current workforce
This requires ensuring that older workers can fully contribute to and participate in your workplace. It means that you have to go beyond a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to deliberately structure policies and practices so that they work just as well for older workers as they do for younger. The focus is on equal opportunities for employees, not necessarily treating everyone the same way.
As well as making sure that selection, performance management, training and promotion practices work for older workers, an environment should be created that values the experience and contribution of older workers and encourages them to participate. It may mean considering the way that work is organised or jobs are designed, designing wellness programmes to be inclusive of the needs of older workers and ensuring social activities are not all geared around your younger workforce.
3. Capitalising on opportunities
This is the most proactive level. Organisations which decide to deliberately improve their recruitment of older workers are operating at this level. This does not mean that they will only employ older workers, but that their recruitment processes are deliberately inclusive, and that their recruitment strategies include mechanisms that older workers are more likely to respond to.
Organisations that put in place phased retirement programmes alongside knowledge transfer processes are operating at this level. This is about finding win–win solutions for the older workers and the organisation, whilst creating opportunities for younger staff.
These levels are not distinct alternatives, but building blocks. You can’t work effectively at the third level, without also doing the first and second. There is no point in trying to recruit older workers if they do not feel valued by the organisation and subsequently leave. There is no point in setting up a phased retirement programme, if you undermine the message by ignoring the input of older workers.
How do we want to position our response?
Again, organisations do this in different ways.
• A stand-alone programme
This has a deliberate focus on age. Sometimes on age generally, sometimes specifically focusing on older workers.
• Part of a diversity strategy
ACC started by developing a specific Age Management Strategy, integrating this with their Equal Employment Opportunities programme.
• Part of a work–life balance strategy
Many of the things that older workers are looking for in the workplace do fit comfortably under the work–life banner: flexibility in hours, job design and leave. Care is needed, though, to not assume that the type of flexibility that is needed in this area will necessarily be the same as it is for people with, for example, young children.
• Part of a general workforce management strategy
In organisations where staff are not comfortable with a specific focus on age this can be useful. However, care will be needed to ensure that the needs of older workers do not get lost or overlooked. It requires a deliberate application of the age ‘lens’ to all policies and practices as well as to the monitoring of outcomes.
• Part of a flexibility strategy
The Ministry of Social Development is considering including older workers in the response they are making to the Employment Relations (Flexible Working Arrangements) Act. The Act requires employers to consider requests for flexible working arrangements for people who have caring responsibilities. This will apply to some older workers who may be caring for partners, elderly family members or grandchildren. The Ministry, however, is thinking about going wider than this and ensuring that all older workers, regardless of caring responsibilities, have the same opportunity.
In deciding which approach is most appropriate for your organisation, consider:
• Which will the have most credibility and acceptance?
• Which will provoke the most interest and action?
• Is there a synergy to be gained in linking the issues?
• What fits best with your organisation’s commitments and priorities?
Do we need to do anything new?
Before developing any new responses, take a good look at what is currently in place. Your organisation may already have policies or provisions in place that simply need to be communicated better. There may already be examples of good practice in different areas of your organisation that just need to be spread wider.