Can You Cope with an Ageing Workforce?
Tue, July 19, 2011 at 12:00 Recent studies by the CIPD showed that only a small percentage (14%) of managers and HR managers are well prepared to cope with the challenges and issues caused by the ageing workforce’.
What if you had help? Often it takes an external party to provide that extra bit of support to make sure a successful strategy is implemented. Having an external view to manage each person’s individual circumstances is also important in maintaining each party’s agenda and in ensuring the best outcome for everyone.
Position Ignition has developed a framework for allowing an individual to get clear about their capabilities and their options, and to plan effectively for their future. At the heart of our work is the intimacy and intensity with which the individual (employee) is able to think through holistically what they want to do in terms of their next step and the medium-to-long term.
The relationship between an individual and their contribution to their team and the organisation for which they work has always been critical. Arguably, the relationship between the elder worker and their organisation has never been more critical or more potentially beneficial.
It is up to HR managers and line managers to lead the way and drive through new policies, structures and frameworks across the organisation.
The Challenges - Systems Under Pressure
As an employer, you must start to recognize the challenges you and your organisation are up against. Employers’ systems regarding payment conventions, equal pay, management systems, training, and planning are all potentially under pressure. For example, if an employee is working full time and being paid a certain amount a year, but then decides they want to go part time and focus on what they’re actually good at, the value of their part time work is proportionately higher than their full time work, and they might be able to argue that you, as their employer could actually still give them the same amount of money, due to the fact that they’re concentrating on their area of strength. But that might put your other workers’ noses out of joint. Also, how are you going to include such an employee in your organisation’s bonus system? What’s going to happen with their pension payments?
Another issue organisations are presently facing is the quality of relationship between a boss and their subordinates. Since computer systems have become more advanced and a bigger part of each organisation, the communication between boss and worker has diminished, not because the boss is worse, but because there are different pressures on them. The sense that, as a modern manager with all this technology at your fingertips, you’ve got to be on top of everything all the time, is counterproductive to the habit of spending quality time communicating with your team. If you don’t talk and you don’t listen, you don’t find out about your staff and what they want.
The benefit to organisations that address these issues in an integrated way is that they will be able to manage the very individual needs and requirements of each of their employees well. They will be able to utilise people to their optimum in their later working years. They will provide support to line managers and supervisors, giving them confidence about managing their teams in a flexible way. And they can adjust their management of people within the business to provide appropriate flexibility for the organisation’s mission and sustainability.
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