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Recruiting more over-50s

Steve Bridger

Interesting...

Firms pledge to recruit more over-50s

  • Aviva, Barclays, Atos and five other firms have agreed to promote over-50s employment by publishing data about the age of their workforce. 
  • They are responding to a call from the government's Business Champion for Older Workers, Andy Briggs. 
  • In February, he asked firms to increase older worker numbers by 12% by 2022.
  • Mr Briggs warned that by then, there will be 14.5 million more jobs, but only seven million younger workers entering the workplace.
  • He said older workers were vital in filling the UK's "colossal skills gap".

Do you know how many employees you have 'Over 50' - and the proportion of your workforce?

What practical steps would you take to make this happen? Positive discrimination?

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  • I am a bit nonplussed by this as I don't think of myself as an "older worker" or someone whose employment needs to be promoted by some kind of special action. What will bring about a change in attitudes is the fourth bullet point in Steve's OP: the mushroom-shaped population. Employers are all getting older at the same rate as employees; director and managers are getting older at the same rate as their staff. The thinking behind this "pledge" is that over 50s are some kind of special group, distinct from the population at large, when we are actually part of the population at large, and not a minority but a hefty chunk of the population.

    This kind of thinking seems to me to be a hang-over from previous generations. Nowadays, people don't seem to regard themselves as older until a couple of decades past 50. We all expect to keep on doing what we like doing through our 50s, 60s and beyond.
  • in reply to Elizabeth Divver

    Indeed, Elizabeth.

    Read this piece in Forbes just now... which does mention the challenge of transitioning employees from full-time jobs to part-time work, which I'm not sure many employers are very good at.

    We'll all be sat next to robots anyway...

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