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Career Management and an Aging Workforce

(Notes from presentation given to NZATD meeting 4/11/08)

A significant statistic revealed in the September EEO Trust survey report – Older Workers: Employers Speak Out, was that within 10 years it is predicted that 50% of our workforce will be over 42. This median age will have increased 8 years between 1991 and 2011. People are living longer, and until a recent census of births, fewer babies were being born. Recognising this, the EEO Trust conducted a survey of 26 members of the EEO Employers group and found that few organisations are changing practices to cater for their aging workforce, although most collected data on the internal demographics.

Given that the baby boomer generation is becoming a dominant player in the workforce and will be working longer than their parents, it seems pertinent to be exploring what is happening in our organisations in response to this phenomenon. Just before the EEO Trust Survey results were published in September I carried out my own informal inquiry with 6 of our larger organisations and concur that most can give information about their workforce demographics, however none of the organisations I spoke with have utilised this to understand the potential issues this will have on their workforce capability and succession planning, nor have they created strategies to mitigate the potential deficits this will incur.

The current economic environment not-withstanding, organisations I spoke to are aware of how this phenomenon might affect their entire practice, and also its impact on their markets. It appears that most do not have policies or practices to support people in their later career transitions when they might wish to adjust or downsize, mentor their successors or transition to retirement.

All organisations surveyed by the EEO Trust believed that the needs of the older worker could be met through EEO practices – special treatment would breach Human Rights Act. Unfortunately, and in my view, this may have hindered many organisations to effectively implement mechanisms to support the transitions of the aging worker, many of whom I see as a result of redundancy or for other career issues.

In their paper “The Lost Generation”, Martin Greller and Linda Stroh, 2004 state: The irony is that the way we currently manage older workers’ careers does not meet the needs of any of the relevant parties: older workers, their employers, or the broader society. Such self-defeating behaviour reflects a failure to incorporate new thinking about careers and aging into the way employers deal with older workers or the way older workers deal with their own careers.

Greller and Stroh claim that older workers leave employment or others “push them out” based on a discredited idea that those over 50 are less skilled, less career-oriented and less ‘trainable’. They suggest that these beliefs become a self-fulfilling prophecy which sees the older worker not engaging in professional development and so their employability and opportunities decline, validating the stereotypes that are upheld by others.

Assumptions about the capabilities and aspirations of older workers tend to be based on an outdated model that as we age we slide down the slippery slope of disengaging with life. While this is no longer the dominant approach to aging, and definitely not the one demonstrated in the EEO research of its member organisations, the logic seems to linger.

Many of the older workers that I see in my practice truly believe that they are less employable, are less appreciated for their contribution and less trainable than younger people in the workforce. This misperception is colluded with by some employers, managers and younger team members unless of course there are practices upheld within the organisation that bust these destructive myths.

The EEO Trust has a great toolkit that addresses these issues in the Valuing Experience; 12 Tips for Employing Older Workers page: http://www.eeotrust.org.nz/content/docs/toolkits

The challenge for most New Zealand businesses until recently, has been a scarce candidate market, therefore retaining the older worker seemed to pay dividends. At the other end of the equation, however, many organisations have neglected to put in place processes that provide conscious, open and constructive transition conversations that enable the older workers to plan for their changing needs and to make the contributions they are developed to make.

The global economic crisis might once again make the older worker vulnerable to redundancy, which makes urgent the EEO’s suggestion that organisations review workforce demographic information with the view to implementing practices that prepare both the organisation and the employee for their aging workforce.

Kaye Avery


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