Promoting an Age-Inclusive Workforce
Living, Learning and Earning Longer
All OECD economies are undergoing rapid population ageing, leading to more age diversity in workplaces than ever before as people are not only living longer but working longer. Greater diversity of experience, generations and skills gives employers an important opportunity to harness the talent that different age groups bring to the workplace and improve productivity and profitability. What can employers do to maximise the benefits of a multigenerational workforce? This report presents a business case for embracing greater age diversity at the workplace and debunks several myths about generational differences in work performance, attitudes and motivations towards work. It points to key employer policies and offers practical examples in three key areas to support and promote an age-inclusive workforce. This includes designing and putting in place all-age and life-stage policies covering the full span of workers careers through best practice in recruitment, retention and retirement, as well as the promotion of life-long learning and good health at work.
Maintaining and developing skills of a multigenerational workforce
No other factor influences business performance and competitiveness more than its workers’ skills and qualifications. However, persistent inequalities in training offers and take-up by age mean that many older workers are left without right skills to flourish in and prolong their careers. This is disadvantageous for firms: it risks lower productivity from declining performance when not investing in all employees, and the loss of experience as older workers’ skills become obsolete and they exit the workforce. A key challenge for organisations is to put the development of employees from all age groups at the forefront of lifelong learning and combines it with a life-phase orientation. This chapter reviews the benefits of and some of the barriers to lifelong learning as well as firm strategies to maximise the diverse skills in the workforce.
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