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Managing older employees: act your age 39Line managers, who obviously play a key role in supporting older employees’planning, were enabled or constrained by business needs and their organisation’sapproaches. There was a sense however that some managers were more adept andinnovative in tackling the problems they faced.For the HR manager of an insurance firm, resourcing from a mixed age local labourpool was not an issue as: ’our view as an organisation is that there is no evidence thatcapability declines with age’. For managers in its call centre, however, priorities werefirst and foremost about delivering targets by, if necessary, redesigning jobs orfinding suitable alternatives, all the while ensuring that different generations workedwell together. As demonstrated by a manager, mixing the generations to keep staffmotivated and engaged to ensure they successfully deliver can work well: ‘It keeps themore mature people on their toes because the young ones are a bit cheeky. And the youngerones get a clip round the ear.’Other findings show the need for a radical review of approaches to talentmanagement of the older workforce, which has either not occurred, or not been apriority in too many organisations. In one transport organisation, managers facing anational skills shortage and attuned to the fact that it would take several years totrain specialists were seeking to attract second careerists to train up themselves,while at the same time having to think creatively about motivating people withoutthe option of promoting them.Meanwhile at the other end of the age range, attracting younger staff to rebalance anageing employee profile was the strategy of a county council we visited in theresearch. The unintended consequence of this move was to signal to their existingolder staff that they were not valued. Again, one manager successfully addressed thiscreatively by mixing generations in learning groups: ‘someone who’s got years ofexperience is seen as a huge asset alongside the fresh ideas of the younger members of staff.’In a defence organisation, closing units and restructuring was giving rise todifficulties in retaining ‘sought‐after’ skills; the organisation was also having to let goof other staff less able to offer the kinds of skills and optimum performance neededin the leaner organisation. One manager had proactively prepared some of his peoplefor an eventual departure by widening their horizon: ‘What I did was to get them toshadow somebody else and work in a different office … some went out for one day to work fora charity to give them experience of working outside’.Our findings show that innovative approaches to talent management are needed,encompassing business needs and individual priorities. These approaches includeflexible working patterns which our research respondents cited as the second mostimportant improvement needed for managing older workers, after providingimproved financial advice.