OLDER WORKERS, OLDER LEARNERS: THE CONTRIBUTION OF EMPLOYERS IN THE BRITISH EAST MIDLANDS

VANESSA BECK, UNIVERSITY OF LEICESTER

Cedefop Workshop “Working at old age”, 29/30 September 2008, Thessaloniki

CONTEXT AND STRUCTURE

Decision factors at end of working life (financial, discrimination, work identity, locus of control, gender, class, location, socialisation, etc.)

Different sectoral settings? The role of learning as factor to enhance

motivation and ability to carry on working? Funded by Learning and Skills Council (LSC)

East Midlands Sectors under investigation: Construction,

Engineering, Health, Logistics and Retail Definition of older workers as 50+?

THE OLDER WORKERS, OLDER LEARNERS PROJECT Pilot project: semi-structured interviews, mainly

via the phone, taped and transcribed for analysis Anonymity offered but some asked to share good

practice

Sector SSC Employers

Other Total

Construction

1 3 1 5

Engineering 1 5 0 6

Health 1 6 1 8

Logistics 1 2 1 4

Retail 1 3 0 4

General 0 0 5 5

32

INTERVIEWEES’ AGE AWARENESS

Generally high (societal) In sectors: some awareness of older workforce,

e.g.: Health/engineering: longer training periods Logistics: age legislation for drivers

SSCs have no policies / not a priority In companies: some awareness of older

workers in particular sections (consultants, office-based etc.), but not a particular problem

…it also reflects the general age demographic profile for manufacturing engineering in the UK. So that in the market place we are finding the same thing. Even though we have recruited significantly into those areas in the last two to three years, we’ve found we’ve recruited in the same demographic profile.

REACTIONS TO THE IMPLICATIONS

As not perceived a problem, reactions are limited

Awareness of ageing vs. workforce planning …there’s lots of work going on about highlighting

where there are potential retirements, though I suppose it’s purely for workforce planning purposes. Do we need to commission more or train more or create more roles because there’s going to be loads of people retiring rather than enhancing the role of older people? […] I mean the reality is probably that we need to reflect that in flexible retirements, that we’ve got perhaps more people over the age of 55 in some key services, but it’s how we incorporate that into more part-time workers?

What about existing provisions and policies?

POLICIES ON LEARNING

Specific skills gaps: Skillsmart Retail are developing new Level 2

qualification with USDAW trade union LOROS / University of Northampton

Certificate in Higher Education (Palliative and Supportive Care)

General development: Nottinghamshire Health and Social Care

Community Workforce Team Inter-professional Learning Manager

TRANSFERABLE POLICIES? (I)

Flexible retirement (PT, phasing out, temping) The issue we get is the immediate loss of huge

experience in particular areas of in-depth knowledge. Fortunately, many of our staff are local and retire locally. If past employees are only down the road and relationships are strong then it’s not unusual for us to pick up the phone and ask one of the guys to pop in for a couple of days. I think as long as your relationships are strong and you treat people well, this flexibility is important.

Assessor / mentor role (see McNair et al 2007), e.g. in Construction or Health (patient navigator)

TRANSFERABLE POLICIES? (II)

Benefits: Quarter Century Club (Jelson) We’ve got something called the Quarter Century

Club, which is for people who’ve worked for the company for 25 years or over, and once they’ve done their 25 years they get invited to the club and they have a do every year and, bits and piece go on. Once they retire they’re still allowed to be part of the club and go to the party. There’s about 250 members at the minute. And that’s quite a big thing. People will ask to stay on until they can get into the club. That’s still quite big, if they’re due to retire before their 25 years, they’ll ask if they can extend it in order to get into the club.

Smooth working as ‘workability’ at Toyota

What Toyota does is to systematically assess the job based upon what kind of body movements and forces are necessary, resulting in a detailed ergonomic assessment. The result is a rating of the physical demand of any given job. Toyota’s approach is to gradually reduce the rating so that there is a wider range of people that could be doing that job. […]. Each individual is assessed at regular intervals.

CONCLUSIONS

Sectors / employers not well prepared though some awareness of ageing

Workforce planning vs. strategies for older workers

Learning is not a key policy, though some useful practices

Good practice or transferable policies? General change of mindset needed at societal

level / work-life balance throughout working life?

Better understanding of sectoral, hierarchical, occupational / professional differences