Menu Search

Looking for practical strategies & solutions for your ageing workforce? Try our online Risk Assessment.

Get Started Now

Posts Tagged SageCo Talk

A privileged perspective – knowledge exchange

Posted by Catriona in Musings, What we're up to on February 15th, 2012

Michael Hollingworth

Facilitator and coach

This week Sageco facilitator and coach, Michael Hollingworth shares what it’s like facilitating the ‘sages’ in the Sageco Exchange program.

At Sageco, the men and women we call ‘sages’ are the experts and most senior executives in organisations, who have spent a lifetime – or at least a very long time (measured in decades) – learning, leading and applying their knowledge in the specialist areas they direct.

Facilitating them in the process of capturing and transferring their expert knowledge is an unusual and fascinating privilege. Their stories are unique, and in telling them you get some glimpses (often totally unexpected) into the complexities of how our very complex society works.

Stories are told in every technical and management realm:

  • How to locate an inexplicable leak causing lower pressure in some small corner of a city’s huge water mains network.
  • What can be done to ensure safety and balance the clearly conflicting demands of a railway line and its road overpass, built in unavoidably unstable terrain.
  • The secret skills of negotiation that keep a large public utility operating and profitable, while avoiding strikes and meeting the increasing pay needs and conditions of its workers.

All those involved in capturing their stories and handing on the skills of the sages learn and grow: the people who will take over their work from the sages, colleagues from other areas linked to their output, administrators who keep the workforce operating. Often the sages themselves learn all over again lessons they had forgotten – or knew by intuition or implicitly.
And perhaps the most satisfying aspect is to see the sages thanked and acknowledged by colleagues who understand, often for the first time, how much they contribute to keeping the wheels turning.

For over seven years the Sageco Exchange program has been used by organisations as a catalyst for knowledge transfer. Contact Sageco to find out more.

 

, ,

No Comments

What’s your attitude to older workers?

Posted by Catriona in Commentary, Media on February 6th, 2012

Last week’s survey results featured in the Financial Services Council paper on ‘Attitudes to Older Workers’ spurned commentary in a number of mainstream newspapers and industry mags. Adele Horin wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald, the editor in the Australian commented – though not directly about the research, and Human Capital took the story up. The research paper is excellent and there are some pearls of quotes that we’ll tuck away. OK – I’ll share one with you now.

“…In the resources sector, we’ve had to be quite creative in actually keeping older people on-board. We see them as a wonderful source of experience and knowledge. The labour demands in our sector are massive – and the skilled talent pool is actually drying up…” Senior HR Director, Resources Sector.

The topic of discrimination is of course very serious. But it intrigues me that over the eight years that Sageco has focussed on mature age workforce solutions, we struggle to find anything new under the sun. Except, of course, the fabulous new Age Discrimination Commissioner, Susan Ryan.

So, I asked myself the question, “What’s my attitude to workers (putting age aside)?”. Here’s my list as someone who has recruited and employed people for my various teams over the last 20 years.

I want ‘workers’ for my team who:

  1. Keep themselves current - with skills, news, styles, professional associations and good coffee.
  2. Keep themselves connected - team members who connect me with other great people. Is there a better way to network?
  3. Keep managing their career - workers who grow their own career, invest in it and keep moving forward. The ones who can’t imagine not having a career in some way, shape or form.
  4. Keep curious - I love workers who ask questions, challenge the norm and always want to find a better way.
  5. Are confidently competent. Fullstop. I’ve come to believe that the description ‘highly competent’ is one to strive for. The cost of incompetence and a manager’s inability to deal with it is astounding.

Hand on my heart, I can say that I’ve employed 24 year olds and 67 year olds who get big ticks against all five characteristics. If you’re a ‘mature worker’ , this is a gentle nudge to check yourself against this list. How do you fare?

To employers – maybe you need to write your own list. And seriously ask yourself: What does age have to do with it?

PS Want to found out how over 10 000 mature age workers have started to Envisage their own future and move beyond the attitudes they face? Come and try in February and March.

, ,

No Comments

Three reasons why organisations should support retirement planning

Posted by Catriona in Media on December 12th, 2011

Envisage - Create your future

Envisage journal for retirement, redeployment, career management plannign

In HR Daily today, I was asked ‘When should you talk to employees about retirement?’ It’s never too early, but we would recommend that by the time employees turn 50, their performance development review conversations should include the topics of future work intentions and retirement conversations. And organisations should be actively supporting their decision making about the future. Why?

  1. Forward planning allows for enough time to transfer knowledge. There is an opportunity to shape a mature employee’s role to support knowledge sharing activities.
  2. The more support a mature employee has in making work and retirement decisions, the more likely they are to experience a positive and productive career.
  3. By having a timely conversation about future working intentions, you may retain that mature employee for longer. They may work differently, but you can reduce recruitment and training costs and minimise knowledge risk.

, ,

No Comments

A level playing field

Posted by Alison in What we're up to on November 30th, 2011

On Monday in her speech at the National Convention Centre in Canberra (‘Australia’s Welfare 2011′), Susan Ryan called for new visionary thinking when it comes to mature age workers.

We need to create a more fluid working environment where we are encouraged to keep learning at intervals throughout our life cycle – in a workforce that lets us move in and out – at any age, without penalty.

Today at an employer roundtable luncheon convened by The Age Discrimination Unit in conjunction with Sageco, The Commissioner was therefore encouraged and enlightened to hear from organisations doing just this.

Organisations in attendance were at various stages of their age management journey, from  building the business case through to showcasing Award winning strategies. Telstra, National Australia Bank, QBE, Service First, PepsiCo, TabCorp and 2disccover shared their thoughts, their challenges, their initiatives and the positive impact of their strategies with the group and members of The Australian Human Rights Commission team.

Catalysts for taking action were explored. What was it that made these organisations move forward in developing mature age strategies and solutions?

  • the data story – including a comparison of the average age of retirement within the organisation to the national average (59)
  • health and safety – in roles with a high level of physicality and an ageing workforce
  • knowledge loss – key people in the business retiring and taking with them critical know-how
  • a wave of premature retirements and the mention by one executive that he ‘didn’t want to drop dead two years from now!’

Attraction and recruitment. Why are more mature workers not breaking through to final offer stage?

  • a triple edged sword – successful placement requires a combination of marketable mature workers, age positive recruiters, and enlightened employers
  • over qualified – the assumption being made that an experienced worker is not prepared to ‘downsize’ in late career
  • ‘language’ – communication used in job ads by agencies and employers screening out mature workers at application stage

Retention. What are some of the triggers for retirement and how can organisations enable working longer, but differently?

  • unconscious bias – unearthing myths, assumptions and stereotypes residing amongst people leaders
  • conversations – enabling authentic conversations between mature workers and their people leaders
  • flexibility – throughout the life course, all ages, all stages
  • culture – creating an environment where mature workers feel valued and acknowledged for their experience

…and so much more!

Older workers have always been, and will continue to be, an important part of the Australian workforce. We are on the cusp of a vastly changing demographic, and it is now necessary for older workers to remain in the workforce to support Australia’s society and economy

- The Hon Susan Ryan, Age Discrimination Commissioner

, , , , , , ,

No Comments

Monash Older Workers and Work Ability Conference

Posted by Alison in What we're up to on November 24th, 2011

If you are after a hearty injection of all things ‘ageing workforce’ then the 2011 Older Workers and Work Ability Conference is not to be missed!

With The Hon. Wayne Swann providing the Opening Address and presentations by Professor Philip Taylor, Susan Ryan, Professor Juhani Ilmarinen, and SageCo’s own Alison Monroe, this conference is bringing together the leading international experts on older workers.

It will be a forum for the exchange of knowledge among policymakers, employers and researchers and others with an interest in workforce ageing.

The Older Workers and Work Ability Conference will be held at the Rendezvous Hotel, Melbourne, on the 12-13 December 2011. Find out more and register now…

, , , , ,

No Comments

Get Email Updates of SageCo Talk / Entries (RSS) and Comments (RSS)