New tricks for old dogs!

With the new anti Age Discrimination Legislation becoming law in the UK on 1st October, FirstAssist, leading health and wellbeing provider is not only urging employers to review their employment policy, but also to embrace this legislation and take advantage of the experience this workforce brings.

Around 1 million people already choose to work beyond the state pension age. For instance, the Queen, who turned 80 this year, is patron of more than 620 charities and organisations and undertook a State Visit to Singapore in March this year! In one recent interview regarding her new role in ëThe Queení, 61 year old Emmy award winner Dame Helen Mirren, actor claims ënot to understand what all the fuss is about - it’s growing older that makes us shed our inhibitionsí. Indeed for her 50th birthday she appeared tastefully naked on the cover of the Radio Times!

Rory Murphy, Head of Commercial, FirstAssist Services explains, ìWith the arrival of this new legislation it is crucial that companies don’t make any assumptions regarding age when it comes to assessing employees. Pay and terms of employment should not be based on age, but should reflect the value of the individual’s contribution to the organisation and their performance at work.

ìA common assumption is that older people start ’winding down’ as they approach normal retirement age. However, older people can be just as ambitious as their younger colleagues, but more importantly, they have experience behind them. Businesses should take advantage of this when looking to recruit for special projects and the good mentors it will bring for younger colleagues,î Rory continues.

Age should also not be taken into consideration for those applying for and undertaking vocational training and an individual’s age should not be used to make a judgment about their ability or fitness. Where such a judgement is required, an occupational health or medical practitioner should be consulted. With potentially expensive claims for those who donít comply, employers need to look carefully at their employment practices and ensure they are treating all employees the same.

Rory explains, ìWhen it comes to addressing the issue of older employees and their plans for retirement, employers should talk to staff to discuss the options. Use the normal appraisals and performance reviews to assess whether they can still do, or indeed want to do the job ñ it may be the person wishes to take their career in another direction and will need to be trained accordingly.

ìOlder people have a wealth of knowledge and businesses should be looking at ways to benefit from it. They should consider alternatives to retirement, such as reducing their hours or the number of days they work, providing this does not impact on the rest of the team or productivity. Offering flexible working hours can help employees strike the right work life balance, but companies should make sure their HR department helps them manage any changes in hours.

FirstAssist dispels some myths about older workers:

You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.

Reality: Studies show only negligible loss of cognitive function of people under 70. While older workers take longer to absorb completely new material, their positive attitudes to learning and accumulated experience mean lower training costs. The fastest growing group of Internet users is people over 50.

Training older workers is a lost investment because they will not stay on the job for long.

Reality: The work expectancy of an employee over 50 usually exceeds the life of new technology for which the workers are trained.

Older workers are not as productive as younger workers.

Reality: Overall productivity does not decline as a function of age. Productivity can actually rise due to greater worker accuracy, dependability and capacity to make better on the spot judgments. Older worker’s production rates are steadier than other age groups.

Older workers are less flexible and adaptable.

Reality: Older workers are just as adaptable once they understand the reason for change. They are more likely to ask why, because they have often previously seen changes in processes and procedures abandoned when they didn’t bring expected rewards quickly enough.

Older workers are not as creative or innovative.

Reality: General intelligence levels are the same as younger workers. 80% of the most workable and worthwhile new production ideas are produced by employees over 40 years old.

Benefit and accident costs are higher for older workers.

Reality: Total sick days per year of older workers is lower than other age groups because they have fewer acute illness and sporadic sick days. While individual older worker’s health, disability and life insurance costs do rise slowly with age, they are offset by lower costs due to fewer dependents.