Section 2 – Supporting Your Staff

An ageing workforce means that capability changes will impact on teams and organisations. Supporting an ageing workforce to work longer can require changes to the working environment and job design to enable everyone to work safely and as effectively and productively as possible.

Age profiling your organisation, including individual departments and teams, helps your organisation understand the age demographics of the workforce and where attention needs to be focused.

This section includes key points to consider, actions to take forward and links to useful information and resources.

Key points

  • Age profiling allows you to take a clearer look at the age of your workforce at an organisational, departmental or team level, now and in the future.
  • Consider management development opportunities that focus on multigenerational team working to help you develop a supportive working culture for all ages.
  • Older staff often report feeling disadvantaged by managers who do not recognise their ongoing need for continuous personal development (CPD).
  • Older workers continue to have learning and development requirements so it is important that managers include them when prioritising their teams training needs.
  • Discussions that cover career/work, future aspirations and retirement plans are an essential part of the management relationship – regular contact and discussion will help staff feel supported to make informed decisions.
  • Some managers feel reluctant to deal with under-performance of older workers. However, leaving someone to perform poorly in the years running up towards retirement and then letting them finally retire can be costly and is arguably discriminatory and certainly unfair to them and to their team members.

Key actions

  • Ensure appraisals and manager/employee discussions are held regularly.
  • Regularly monitor the age profile of your team.
  • Be aware of how management decisions you are making may be influenced by age including access to CPD.
  • Use performance management processes fairly and equitably – but do not use someone’s age as a reason to justify or tolerate poor performance, or to insist on different levels of performance than would otherwise be expected.
  • Take a supportive approach and consider whether a flexible attitude to working patterns or job design would be helpful if someone is finding performance difficult.
  • Review work organisation and job design in consultation with staff who may be experiencing (or may be likely to experience) barriers to their ongoing employment.
  • Include further plans and retirement aspirations as a standard part of one to one and appraisal discussions.

Useful information and resources

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