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Posts Tagged retirement

The big tilt tittering

Posted by Catriona in Commentary on November 14th, 2011

I lunched last Friday with 100 others or so at South Australia’s CEDA event ‘Population Crunch’. After seven or so years of quoting Bernard’s research, it was nice to chat with the man who coins media savvy terms like ‘man drought’. Bernard’s latest book ‘The Big Tilt’ is essentially about the crunch that occurs as we have more baby boomers leaving the workforce than Gen Ys entering it. Salt’s eloquent observations and generalisations provoked a bit of a titter in the room – many of them in the Baby Boomer demographic.

It’s not new news. But it does provide another perspective to consider the social impact of this phenomenon and what it means for the workplace and baby boomers in particular. Salt talked about the need to re-engineer the space that now exists between ‘traditional retirement’ and death – a period of what could be twenty to thirty years. With our workforce participation and workforce planning glasses on, it would seem in employers’ best interests to support baby boomers to ‘re-engineer that space’.

  • How to envisage life beyond the traditional retirement date
  • How to create a transition to retirement.
  • How to construct a portfolio career or lifestyle.
  • How to work longer but differently.
  • What actions to take about money, health, relationships and career

Baby boomers invented the concept of a ‘teenager’. I wonder in later life if they will invent a new name for that phase between traditional retirement and death. They may well do it with support from their employers.

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Susan Ryan, Age Discrimination Commissioner: Redrawing the picture

Posted by Alison in Commentary on October 19th, 2011

There is a buzz around the SageCo office as we eagerly anticipate the November launch of ENVISAGE – our new facilitated and online solution. ENVISAGE is an evolution of our popular Create program and takes a (very!) colourful and artistic view of retirement and planning in late career.

So with this in mind, Susan Ryan’s latest opinion piece strikes a chord as she speaks of ‘redrawing’ the mature age picture.

Recently appointed as Australia’s first dedicated Age Commissioner, Susan is already making her mark, recently putting forward a suite of proposals at the federal Government’s Tax Forum held in September.  The objective? To remove negative tax impacts on older Australians.

Getting rid of age barriers in super, workers compensation and income insurance would produce more productivity. If, in the near future, we can provide successful examples, put in place by forward-looking employers, we would have inspirational models for the broader workforce.

Age caps currently leave workers over 65 uncovered for workers’ compensation and income maintenance insurance. Not conducive to the current trend of working longer and deferring retirement.

The changes put forward by The Commissioner will support employers keen to benefit from the skills, experience, knowledge and loyalty of the mature workforce.

(Published in The Equality Law Reform Project, 10 October 2011)

 

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Baby Boomers – satisfied but overlooked

Posted by Catriona in Commentary, Media on September 14th, 2011

Mercer’s What’s Working survey declares that baby boomers are more satisfied with the work they do, less likely to leave BUT they are overlooked for career development and opportunities. Do you agree?

Sageco always encourages employers to actively support mature workers in their late career and retirement decisions. Sometimes it is the ‘assumption’ of retirement that is the greatest barrier to this. If you manage mature workers, then follow these three easy steps to ensure that they’re not being overlooked:

  • Have a conversation about their work and retirement intentions. Ask the questions, “What would you like the next ten years working here to look like?”
  • Encourage your mature workers to think about taking charge of their own career development.
  • Make sure that performance and development reviews are constructive and don’t assume that someone is ‘just going to retire soon’ because they are over 50.

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Bring down the barricades

Posted by Alison in Research on March 4th, 2011

In January the Productivity Commission released a working paper focusing on the labour force participation of women over 45.

A few key points arising from the paper;

  • there has been quite a significant increase over the past three decades in ‘contribution to total hours worked’, rising from 6% in 1979 to 15% in 2009
  • labour force participation rates for women 45-54 are currently 78% but decline significantly over 55, with women still retiring earlier than men (at 58 years compared to 61.5)
  • a woman’s health, care giving responsibility and access to flexible working hours are the major factors in determining workforce participation
  • half of women working full time want to work less hours and one quarter working part time want to increase hours
  • an acknowledgement that barriers to participation are significant and not easy to address

Around 7% of mature women (200 000 potential employees!) could be attracted back into the labour force…if we bring down the barricades and support care givers, create opportunities to work longer (but differently) and promote health and wellbeing.

There is much ado about gender diversity in the workforce with the new ASX reporting guidelines. But an opportunity exists to go one step further. Employers can view gender through the life course lens and take active steps to embrace women over 45. Those who do will attract enthusiasm, experience and empathy.

All qualities that customers love…

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freedom of choice

Posted by Alison in Commentary on January 25th, 2011

From 1 October 2011 the ‘default retirement age’ of 65 will be scrapped by the UK Government in a move announced by the Coalition last week.

The move will prevent employers from forcing staff out when they reach the age of 65. Despite protests from employer groups, the government will go ahead with the plan stating that it would give people “more freedom of choice” and employers will be able to utilise older worker’s skills for a longer time.

Older workers can play an incredibly important role in the workplace and it is high time we ended this outdated form of age discrimination, said Employment Relations Minister Edward Davey.

About two-thirds of employers in the UK no longer use fixed retirement ages. With over 850,000 workers 65+, there is no evidence that productivity declines after that age, Davey went on to say.

Population projections suggest more than 10 million people living in Britain today will reach their 100th birthday. This in itself will keep The Queen working hard ~ mailing out all those letters!

great news for older people, great news for business and great news for the economy

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