Pino Migliorino, Chair of The NSW Ministerial Advisory Committee on Ageing spoke passionately about the need to consider ‘ageing sub-groups’ in relation to ‘who gets employed and who stays employed’. Pino  highlighted the distinct challenges and needs of three categories of mature worker to illustrate diversity within diversity;

1. those from a non English speaking background
2. Indigenous Australians
3. those living in regional and rural areas

This topic was further embellished by The Hon.Barry Jones AO in his key note address, encouraging us to create a fresh map of life - not confusing the third age with the fourth, one of dependence.

The third agers have no intention of ‘winding down’ - they are more interested in ‘revving up’!

It all forms part of rethinking traditional assumptions. In the words of AAG President, Professor Julie Byles;

it is demographic fitness - not age - that counts

Ageing workforce

The weekend Financial Review’s 31 July 1 August excellent article by Deirdre Macken  provides an up to date snapshot of how our workforce is changing. You need to subscribe to get the full article, but in the meantime, here are seven stats to have up your sleeve:

1. In the past three years, almost 100 000 extra older workers have entered the workforce annually
2. Ten years ago only a third of people aged 60 - 64 were working; now more than half of the 60 - 64 population are working
3. Three years ago, one in seven workers were older than 55; now it’s one in six.
4. 40 percent of all the new workers in the past three years are 55 or older
5. Since June 2007 the only age groups that convincingly increased their participation in the workforce were those over 55
6. The number of workers aged 65 plus jumped 30 %compared with the population increase in that age group of 8.5 %
7. The biggest increase in workers across the country is among women older than 65

As Barbara Pocock says:

Compared with 20 years ago, there is a lot more identity-making and meaning-making that has been attached to work. Even people’s friendships are more likely to be based at work than in previous generations.”

What’s all this mean? An ageing workforce means that organisations need to re-think the way we work and what a career life cycle is. The mantra we often hear: “Happy to work longer, but not the way I’m working now.” Let’s make our work association enjoyable, social, meaningful and supportive of other facets of our lives. Now that’s something no generation will argue with.

Senator The Hon Mark Arbib, Minister for Employment Participation acknowledged that whilst the ageing of the Australian workforce is indeed a significant challenge, employers can combat the challenge by actively boosting the labour force participation rate of mature workers.

The Senator added that there is a ’supply and demand’ imbalance. This is only set to worsen through the unprecedented retirement of a generation of workers who occupy roles falling under the Skilled Occupation Categories (including engineers, IT and health workers).

“The most common letters across my desk are from writers aged 45+. We are talking about highly skilled and experienced people. Yet, they take 52 weeks on average to find a new job. Government AND employers need to work together to effect culture change”.

It was good to see that many enlightened employers were in the room to hear the address yesterday. AMP, Telstra and TransGrid to name a few. All of whom are already on the ‘age management journey’.

Professor Peter McDonald, ANU Director of Demographic Research, cited scenario modelling by Skills Australia and Access Economics that estimates 4.36m extra workers will be required over the next 15 years.

Almost the same number of boomers exiting the workforce over the same period to retirement…

Butler helped create the modern notion that ageing is a time of choice, of opportunity, of growth. He is recognised as having conducted one of the first long term studies of older people in 1955.

Some of the groundbreaking findings of that study were that senility is not an inevitable consequence of age and that psychiatric care is not wasted on the elderly, as was commonly believed. It also found that older people were more contented and tended to live longer when their lives were filled with goals, structure and a sense of purpose.

His work has certainly contributed to the core values and philosophy of SageCo’s programs for redirecting retirement.

Life, happiness and activity, as Aristotle suggests, are all the same thing. There is a higher experience of transcendent joy, but happiness in general consists in being active; that is, exercising agency and initiative, fulfilling our vocation, acquiring and practising skills, enjoying the freedom to think and to make.

This is why retirement is so dangerous. People imagine they want more leisure, but they confuse leisure with idleness. The former is a state of freedom from material necessity that should allow one to pursue activities of intrinsic interest; but idleness is a lack of activity, and even the dull routines of work are more energising than having nothing to do.

Rethink retirement. If not a dangerous concept, it is at best outdated.

“The trick to the age management puzzle is slowing the rate of retirement” says SageCo MD, Alison Monroe. “Use your workforce planning data to determine the risk of not only how many you are losing, but also who you are losing.”

Extending the working life of our baby boomer generation is a key strategy for ensuring a future workforce. By 2016 we have more people leaving the workforce than entering it;  something has to shift. But how?

The results of this survey suggest that managers and HR professionals need to build a high level of competency in redesigning roles, applying flexible work arrangements and dealing with the more granular tasks of remuneration and superannuation.

While flexible work opportunities were the clear winner here, respondents showed strong support for an organisation’s alumni program to provide contracting opportunities and the means to contribute knowledge to special projects.

“SageCo sees a strong argument for the reinvention of the alumni model.” says Catriona Byrne, SageCo Director and Product Development Lead. “Up till now, most alumni programs simply provide a means for past employees to keep in touch annually.

We are having early discussions with a few progressive organisations who have tapped into the opportunity of using their alumni program as a way to resource the future. The new alumni model is a living, breathing knowledge database and a talent pool of experienced, contingent employees who can hit the ground running.”

None of these interventions will make a difference unless organisations have a baseline of good people management. However, it is clear that new practices must be put in place to influence retiring employees.

“The results also indicate that organisations need to actively support late career employees in their decisions about work and retirement.” suggests Alison Monroe “The mindset shift required by employees and employers alike won’t happen left to chance.”

At 65 years of age :

• in 1800, you were dead 27 years ago
• in 1900, you were dead 12 years ago
• in 2000, you had 12 - 15 years to go
• in 2100, you may be two-thirds through your life

We need to be very careful about what an ‘ageing society’ or the ‘greying of Australia’ really means

Even at 70 years of age many will still be working, probably part-time and will be fit and healthy.

Sourced from Market Watch, AICD

We agree; we need to raise the age definition of ‘old’. We also need to challenge the traditional assumption of retirement.

Yes - we will have a growing porportion of older workers - most only too happy to do different and mostly part-time work beyond 65 years of age.

Sourced from Market Watch, AICD

Employers need to build capability in role redesign and incorporating flexible work practices into their modus operandi.

SageCo’s key questions::

• How clear is your pathway for mature workers in your organisation?
• How are you supporting your  employees in preparing for work and life in late career?
• How many roles incorporate flexibility?

This continues a rising trend with a 20% increase in age discrimination complaints seen between 2008 and 2009.

“The Government is sending strong signals that we need to work longer but the question is can we when there’s a culture that says you’re not valuable when you’re over a certain age.”   More…

Let’s hope Risk Managers have this topic firmly on their agenda. Organisations who are the subject of a complaint suffer not only significant costs but damage to their coveted employment brand.

Create retirement success

Do you have an answer to this question? It’s a commonly posed question, but think about the answers you get. My experience is that the question is oft met with a shrug of the shoulders and a laugh.

” Oh - definitely play golf every day.”

” Don’t worry; my wife has a long to do list for me.”

” I can’t afford to retire the rate my kids are going.”

Our business is built around influencing work and life decisions and slowing the rate of retirement so thatorganisations are sustainable in the future.

Last week I had coffee with a  CEO of a not-for-profit in Adelaide. Whenever I talk about our Create seminars which are designed to support employees in their ‘retirement’ decisions, I throw a version of the above question in: What do you want when you retire?  She impressed me with her answer:

“I plan to work a few more years at this level. Then I want to retire and provide support for organisations that help underpriveleged children, because my children have had such a comparably priveleged upbringing. I also plan to do some study in the Fine Arts. I imagine that I will always work in some capacity, but not the way I’m working now.”

Retirement is an assumption. What most people we come across want, is the opportunity for redirection. Working, but working differently. Making time for other success factors like your nearest and dearest, your own wellbeing and your long time goals.

What do you say when you’re asked this question? Do you shrug it off with some glib answer? Or can you articulate what ‘retirement’ looks like for you? Try it..

Here’s another image: a newer, more sombre reality. You work in an office. Your 65th birthday comes and goes. Life as you know it ticks on, the humdrum of the office continues. You turn 67, then  70. You watch your salt-and-pepper hair turn grey, then take on a silver-white shimmer. You look across your ergonomically designed desk (with the adapted lighting to aid your weakened eyesight) at your colleague; he or she is older and more silvery than you. Forget the  golf course; you are not going there - at least, not yet.

Welcome to 2050, where, according to the Rudd government’s intergenerational report, nearly one in four of us is over 65. The future is grey.

Here’s the trick: How do we work longer but work differently? I’ve had a stab at providing an alternative picture. Organisations who invest now in workforce development for their late career employees could assure their staff of something like this:

Here’s another image: a newer, bright reality. You work in an office. Your 65th birthday comes and your Gen Z manager gives you a day off to celebrate with your grandchildren.  Work as you know it has taken on a whole new dimension, the hum of the office alternates with the trill of birds when you work at your home office two days a week. You turn 67, then  70. You watch your salt-and-pepper hair turn grey, then take on a silver-white shimmer. You add a purple streak to it in acknowledgment of the wisdom you share with your two mentees over lunch. They thoroughly approve.

You look across your ergonomically designed desk (with the adapted lighting to aid your weakened eyesight) at your colleague; he or she is older and more silvery than you. Forget the  golf course; they are packing up for ’snow goose’ leave and will return in three month’s time from their beach holiday to be part of the contingent workforce for the ‘busy season’.

Welcome to 2050, where, according to the Rudd government’s intergenerational report, nearly one in four of us is over 65. The future is surprisingly bright.