Age profiling - Mature @ EU

HM Land Registry
“Age seemed to be the one diversity issue that all managers could relate to”, said, John
Nicholson when he joined HMLR in 2000. “We decided to age profile across the whole
business and then carry out a further analysis by job band. Age profiling was unexpectedly
useful in that it has helped forge the link in with other issues, and support the holistic
approach to diversity we are striving to achieve. For instance, we felt we should try and
attract more younger workers and women returners and age profiling suggested we
should not only review our ethnic minority policies but also revisit how we promoted
flexible working and child care provision.”
John Nicholson, Head of Diversity HMLR
“Age profiling can provide a focussed snapshot
of your workforce and is a useful additional
method of measuring business performance.”
Recruitment and retention
Age profiling is one of the most powerful tools
you can use to measure the effectiveness of
recruitment policies and to establish whether
you are an employer of choice.
By profiling the applicant pool, interview pool, and
successfully appointed personnel you can learn much
about your recruitment process. By then measuring
the age profile of those exiting the business, say at
3 months, 6 months and a year, further evidence
can be gathered about the effectiveness of your
recruitment and induction system.
But different businesses have – and are happy with
– different rates of turnover. For you it may not be
a question of recruitment, but of retention. Once
again age profiling will help you better understand
the current picture and provide useful indictors on
how best to retain, rather than recruit staff.
In fact, the age profiling of personnel exiting the
organisation correlated against their reasons for
leaving may well provide clear indications of
frustrations within certain age categories.Your
business may be losing high fliers, managers of the
future, or key personnel.
Employee satisfaction
A number of organisations now include age as
a factor in employee surveys. Analysing the results
by age may provide you with evidence of varying
satisfaction levels within different age groups of
staff. Added to analysis of exit information, this
data could also provide evidence of how well
you are meeting your employees’ expectations.
EFA consider it essential to cross refer age statistics
with other diversity statistics, such as gender, race,
disability, etc.
Work-life balance and family
friendly policies
Many organisations have initiated policies that
address work-life balance issues. Often these are
focussed around the needs of a particular group
of workers – such as women with young children.
However, analysis of your employees by age, may
well highlight that growing numbers may have
elder-care, rather than child-care needs.
Age profiling – a lever for change
Age profiling provides you with a sophisticated
technique that will deliver internal evidence to
support a change of policy or to encourage
better practice.