PDF of this item - The Institute for Employment Studies

Managing older employees: act your age 37Managing older employees: act your ageISSUE8Marie Strebler, Principal Research FellowIt’s true: we are all getting older. Early last year, for the first time in UK history thenumber of people aged 65 years and over exceeded the number of those 16 years andunder. A poll of IES HR network members at the end of 2009 confirmed that demographicchanges and the ageing workforce are fundamental issues for employers andHR functions to address. The participants agreed that managing older employees,their recruitment, training, retention and their retirement will be critical issues in HRmanagement over the next decade. 1 Amongst forthcoming challenges are trickypolicy issues such as:■ the fate of the default retirement age (DRA), widely predicted to be abolished bysome (with the government review having been brought forward), but whosedemise is also resisted by many employers■ the disappearance of defined benefit pension plans and concerns that their lowercost defined contribution replacements will not adequately fund the retirement ofmillions of employees■ political debate over the timing of the increase of the state pension age and theshape of the new personal accounts, now known as National Employment SavingsTrusts (NEST), due to be introduced from 2012.Predictably, corporate HR network members include on their HR agenda for theirolder workforce the key issues of: engagement and motivation, capability and skills,talent management and age discrimination. As we tentatively come out of recessionand enter this new decade what can we learn from IES research which may elucidateand provide some answers to the challenges ahead?1HR member network survey results 2009: The ageing workforceSee www.employment‐studies.co.uk/network/research/ageing_survey.php