Improving Working Lives - except for older workers?

Wow.

As someone who used to work for an age-related charity, that is a *dreadful* article. We used to spend our time working with employers to change their perspective of older employees as being somehow inconvenient burdens who needed special treatment. Our message was all about how older workers are an untapped resource who didn't need companies to adapt to accommodate them.

We used data to show that, contrary to expectations, older employees take no more time off than any other group (and, actually, rather less than the 18-35 group), are just as tech-savvy as school leavers (and better at typing), bring wider, deeper experience and are less likely to change jobs within two years.

The sub-text of this article seems to be "if you want to employ older people you'd better make some changes". Nice job putting up barriers to progress, there, Ageing Better.

I should add that I don't disagree that the things the article suggests are good things to do, but I don't think they have anything to do with creating job opportunities for older people.

The thing is Robey, older workers do need companies to make changes but they are not the only group that would benefit.
So, older workers who've taken time out to care for an elderly relative may struggle to get back into work. And so do many mothers who choose to stay at home when children are young.
Older workers may want to work flexible or reduced hours to care for a partner with an age-related condition or perhaps to look after grandchildren. But then again lots of other groups - parents, disabled workers etc - would also benefit from more flexibility.
So I guess it's really about encouraging employers to consider whether their current recruitment and employment practices accommodate the majority or just a small minority.

Quite so, Anna. None of the suggestions are per se a bad thing (on the contrary, I think they're all good things), but pitching them as being part of a strategy to attract and/or retain older workers is, in my opinion, quite the wrong note to strike.

Perhaps a better approach to have taken would have been along the lines of "Look at how these popular business strategies to improve employee engagement and long-term retention of talent will *also* improve your ability to create a multi-generational workforce".

Quite so, Anna. None of the suggestions are per se a bad thing (on the contrary, I think they're all good things), but pitching them as being part of a strategy to attract and/or retain older workers is, in my opinion, quite the wrong note to strike.

Perhaps a better approach to have taken would have been along the lines of "Look at how these popular business strategies to improve employee engagement and long-term retention of talent will *also* improve your ability to create a multi-generational workforce".