Today the Government announces that it will be scrapping the default retirement age of 65 from October 2011. This effectively means it ends from April 2011 due to the required 6 month notification process. This is a great step towards ensuring that employers manage the performance of all their workforce effectively and will provide the business benefits of helping them to retain relevant experience, skills and the talent needed in their organisations. It also means that the employee has a real choice in deciding what is best for them based on their individual circumstances.
In reality, most people will continue to think about retirement in terms of when their pension becomes available, if they are lucky enough to have one,so there won't be a lot of change.
The key thing is that this announcement will start to help us rethink how we plan for our older lives and help us to see that as we get older we can still have a very valid contribution to make to the younger generations,society and the economy.
Wednesday, 28 July 2010
Tuesday, 27 July 2010
Thank you for taking carers seriously
"Thank you for taking carers seriously" is how HRH Princess Anne ended her speech at the 5th International Care Conference held in Leeds in July 2010. 22 countries were represented at the conference and Princess Anne saw the conference as a real "boost" for carers. She was preceded by the Rt Hon Andrew Lansley talking about care reform with an emphasis on Prevention, Protection, Partnership and Personalisation. He stated that the new Government's vision for the future of adult care is to be announced in the Autumn.
However, the real visionaries, providing hope for the future,came from inspirational speakers representing the conference sponsor Intel with a video from Eric Dishman and in-the-flesh anthropologist Simon Roberts. While both represented this large commercial company which is investing heaviliy in research and development to gain long term benefits from this massively profitable market, what was striking was that, as individuals, they seemed genuinely (refreshingly) passionate and committed to changing the face of care.The key to this seemed to be a big emphasis on understanding, and not forgetting, that technology was there to help,support and enhance the lives of individuals recognising all their foibles, imperfections and what makes us human.
Simon talked about the "magic of ethnography" and the thousands of hours of videos that were used to discuss with engineers who looked painstakingly for patterns of behaviours and ideas so that they could test and then iteratively improve products.He talked about creating products that people "could fondle" and wanted. He talked about being able to "reimagine" solutions and the need to build tools that connect and drive a "careforce".
Princess Anne had recognised earlier that "no-one expects to be a carer" (and everyone hopes they will not need care)but the positive outcome of commercial companies like Intel getting involved in this area is that in the future if, and when, we do become carers or indeed need care, we are less likely to be stigmatised and excluded from society because we have a range of desirable, motivational and life enhancing products and services to look forward to.
However, the real visionaries, providing hope for the future,came from inspirational speakers representing the conference sponsor Intel with a video from Eric Dishman and in-the-flesh anthropologist Simon Roberts. While both represented this large commercial company which is investing heaviliy in research and development to gain long term benefits from this massively profitable market, what was striking was that, as individuals, they seemed genuinely (refreshingly) passionate and committed to changing the face of care.The key to this seemed to be a big emphasis on understanding, and not forgetting, that technology was there to help,support and enhance the lives of individuals recognising all their foibles, imperfections and what makes us human.
Simon talked about the "magic of ethnography" and the thousands of hours of videos that were used to discuss with engineers who looked painstakingly for patterns of behaviours and ideas so that they could test and then iteratively improve products.He talked about creating products that people "could fondle" and wanted. He talked about being able to "reimagine" solutions and the need to build tools that connect and drive a "careforce".
Princess Anne had recognised earlier that "no-one expects to be a carer" (and everyone hopes they will not need care)but the positive outcome of commercial companies like Intel getting involved in this area is that in the future if, and when, we do become carers or indeed need care, we are less likely to be stigmatised and excluded from society because we have a range of desirable, motivational and life enhancing products and services to look forward to.
Friday, 2 July 2010
29 Hour Days
On the news today, the good news of life expectancy increasing coupled with the more disturbing news that the life expectancy gap between the poor and the better off is widening. Smoking was trotted out as the single, biggest contributory factor to this difference.
I attended a conference on health and age a couple of years ago and they talked about the increase in life expectancy in terms of us all gaining 5 hours a day, which seems particularly significant to me. But then this was even better expressed as a 29 hour day with how you live your 24 hours today, impacting on the quality of the extra 5 hours you will gain in the future.I like this concept as it is very simple. We need to live well today to ensure we live well in the future.
I attended a conference on health and age a couple of years ago and they talked about the increase in life expectancy in terms of us all gaining 5 hours a day, which seems particularly significant to me. But then this was even better expressed as a 29 hour day with how you live your 24 hours today, impacting on the quality of the extra 5 hours you will gain in the future.I like this concept as it is very simple. We need to live well today to ensure we live well in the future.
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