Making retirement redundant

Today the Mature Times has published my latest article which you can see currently on the home page at www.maturetimes.co.uk. Basically older people will need to resign when they want to leave work rather than "retire" when next year's changes to the default retirement age come into force. This will have both cultural implications and an impact on current employment practices, particularly performance management. See the article for more details.

The Mature Times also covers another story about Longleat and the fact that management are to retire all their over 65s before the new legislation comes into force, next October. There are likely to be other organisations doing the same thing IE clearing out their older worekrs while they can.

The new legislation can't come soon enough in terms of ensuring that everyone is treated equally based on their abilities, capabilities, experience and skills and not a stereotypical view of what someone is like at a particular age. Hopefully more and more employers will recognise the benefits of this approach and get into the spirit of the changes rather than just complying with the law.

MORE older workers HAVING to work into their retirement

Figures published recently by the Department of Communities and Local Government show that almost 250,000 people aged 65+ are still repaying their mortgages and that there are c1 million homeowners yet to clear their mortgage debts who are approaching retirement. Within 5 years the number of pensioners with mortgages is projected to increase to 1 million. This suggests that more and more older workers are likely to need to continue to work rather than retire. The removal of the deferred retirement age next year will at least make it easier for them to do so. These figures add further weight to the argument that employers should ensure that they have effective employment practices in place, particularly the need to update the skills of their older workers who may be employed for longer.

Change at any age

The Employer Forum on Age (EFA) and Cranfield School of Management have recently published research about career transitions. A key finding is the importance of the line manager in this process. The line manager has an " important role to play in ensuring that individuals received the right support and development in order to progress in their careers". The report goes on to say that " Employers may therefore consider providing training to line managers to ensure they are able to manage their subordinates' careers and support them in making career transitions".

This means that the line manager has an important part to play in the final transition IE out of work into retirement or part-retirement and the real question is how well equipped line managers currently feel about doing this?
The research showed that the decision of whether to retire or not was most likely influenced by an individual's financial situation, health and family and just over a third would consider working beyond 65.

The report also stated that "pre-retirement planning at a much earlier age than is generally the norm (if offered at all by employers) may be useful.

Employers concerned about workforce and succession planning issues, when the default retirement age is removed next year, might therefore like to consider the role and training needs of the line manager and the extra support that retirement workshops can provide to all parties as part of aiding future planning for the organisation and for the individual.

Company pension schemes and auto-enrolment

The Government announced yesterday that auto-enrolment into a company pension scheme will apply to all companies, whatever their size. This will obviously create more issues for smaller companies where the cost of implementation is disproportionate. But it does mean that future generations of older people, when all this becomes just normal business practice,are likely to have better incomes in retirement. That's the theory anyway. The changes come in from October 2012 for larger companies through to September 2016 for smaller ones.

We'll also be hearing a lot more about NEST (the National Employment Savings Trust) in the next few years. This has been set up by the Government for those organisations who do not have their own pension schemes.

With the default retirement age going in 2011 presenting many firms with an older workforce with some difficulties,followed by these new rules on pensions, employers are really going to have to concentrate some time on older workers. If they need help, they know where I am!

The future of retirement for couples

The biggest argument against increasing the state pension age has been because it impacts the poorest most IE those whose only source of income when they give up work is from the state. This is further exacerbated by the fact that these very same groups are less likely to experience as great an improvement in life expectancy as the rest of the population. Traditionally women have retired at 60 and men at 65 which means couples are able to enjoy retirement together from as young as 65. In the future,with the equalisation of state pension age at 66, this will mean for many couples, where the women are often younger, it might be 69 or 70 before they retire together as a couple.

This provides opportunities for services targeting the men who may be at home for several years while their wife works ie a reversal of the current position. It also suggests that employers need to consider providng sabbaticals/gap years/flexible options/ R and R, for people so that they can refresh and enjoy time off together long before they're both in their 70s.

2020: retirement age increased to 66 for all

So, the good news (?) from the Chancellor's Spending Review is that while extending the state pension age has been brought forward to April 2020, it hasn't been brought forward to 2016 as was originally rumoured! The pension age will be equalised at 65 for men and women in November 2018 meaning that women have a particularly raw deal as their pensions age is extended by 5 years from 2010-2018.

Trying to look at the positive side of this, we are living longer generally so a delay in retirement age should mean that we still have a good many years to enjoy in retirement. And, bearing in mind that as we get older society tends to write us off until the oldest generations become effectively invisible, maybe being "economically active" for longer will help to increase our visibility and value.

Strategies for older workers

The forthcoming abolition of the default retirement age has real implications for employers, particularly those with an older age profile of workers. There needs to be 3 clear strategies to deal with workers 1.staying beyond state pension age, 2.leaving and 3.incoming. All will be needed to ensure that employers maximise the performance of the talent available.

For those staying, employers will need to ensure that they have an effective performance management process in place, that their learning and development encourages on-going learning for all workers to update their skills and that inter-generational working and communication is maximised.All greatly benefiting all parties.

For those leaving, putting in place an employer supported retirement readiness programme will help workers to plan for a fulfilling older age encouraging them to think more positively about leaving, helping with workforce planning issues.

And the area which is often forgotten,making sure that the potential for older to come into the organisation is not ignored as many will the right skills and experience to improve the organisation's competitive position.

Countdown to retirement

You might be interested in my piece published in the Mature Times today about results from research about "retirement readiness" which I conducted recently. It showed that 50% of respondents, who indicated they were within 5 years of retiring, had not even started thinking or planning seriously about their older years. One respondent said about the questionnaire, "I just found this worrying. I suppose if I'm positive then it was thought provoking...but since I am so unready I found it depressing".

Employers need to really get their act together to provide their employees with support services to help them with their new life after full time work ends, so that they are more ready, and better equipped, to get the most out of this important time. This will become increasingly important to employers when a formal retirement age is phased out next year. See more at wwww.maturetimes.co.uk/node/11257

Equalities Act

The Equalities Act comes into force today. It's designed to draw together all the anti-discrimination laws with a view to simplifying and standardising the law and making them all easier to understand, that's the theory.

The Act continues to allow employers to have a default retirement age of 65 until April 2011 and then it will be phased out by October 2011. This means that employers really need to gear up their performance management processes and think long and hard about supporting older workers in making life:work decisions in their older years. This will be particularly important for organisations with an older age profile as it could help them with workforce planning.

The reality is most people will make decisions on when their pension is available, if they are lucky to have one. This may mean many will want to keep some form of work until annuity rates improve.

Another interesting aspect of the Equalities Act which could help older workers is that it is now unlawful to face invasive questioning about health and disability before a job offer stage in recruitment (unless intrinsically necessary for the role), IE effectively the end of the pre-employment health questionnaires.

Also, in terms of the provision of goods and services, the new Act protects consumers from age discrimination by making it unlawful to offer less favourable treatment on grounds of age without justification. Lots of exceptions too.

There's some pretty straight forward information summarising this all from the ACAS website

Bridging the World

The growing 50+ market is huge and still hugely under served. It is therefore interesting to note that STA, the Student Travel Agency, has recognised this is a potentially lucrative market segment and has launched a new travel agency called Bridge The World (see www.bridgetheworld.com). The spokesmen state that these are the people who are likely to have the time to travel because they are fully or partially retired. Another critical factor to their success has to be the fact that the 50+ are also more likely to have the money to enjoy long haul travel as the initial focus is on Australia, New Zealand, Asia and South Pacific.

It will be interesting to see how this business progresses. An initial observation is that the travel insurance only covers individuals up to the age of 70, which seems quite young and limiting. The other key aspect is what impact concerns about the environment will have on potential customers.

At least it is an example of a Business finally taking the older market more seriously.

Good news for Grey Hair

In the book called "Fooled by Randomness" by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (page 63) he states, and I quote:
" I was amused to discover an evolutionary argument in mate selection that considers that women prefer (on balance) to mate with healthy older men over healthy younger ones, everything else being equal, as the former provide some evidence of better genes. Gray hair signals an enhanced ability to survive- conditional on having reached the gray hair stage, a man is likely to be more resistant to the vagaries of life. Curiously life insurers in renaissance Italy reached the same conclusion by charging the same insurance for a man in his twenties as they did for a man in his fifties...once a man crossed the forty five year old mark, he had shown very few ailments could harm him".

Maybe this could present a new marketing opportunity for manufacturers of grey hair dyes to expand their market to younger men!

Climate Change and Older People

A new piece of research has been published today by the Stockholm Environment Institute entitled "Older People and Climate Change- the Case for Better Engagement". As part of the report it categorises older people into the 3 Cs, Contributors, Campaigners and Casualities of climate change.

I haven't gone into the research in great detail but the report states that the baby boomer generations, as the first real consumer generation, have the highest carbon footprint. The current oldest generation have lower carbon footprint and when they die off (literally) they will be replaced by what the report calls the " replacement effect" ie the highest carbon footprint contributors will move into the oldest age.

While I can see that this would be a problem and a cause for concern the thing that struck me most about the report was the fact that the "culprits" had been segmented based on their age. My question is that surely it is chosen (or enforced) lifestyle that determines the carbon footprint? All age groups can be divided into the 3 Cs and that the approach taken is too simplistic and too general. The key aspect is to target and change behaviour of those whose life styles do the most damage to the environment, whatever their age.

I do believe that engagement is a key component of change, as the report suggests, and that effective social marketing is required to change behaviours but this requires a more sophisticated segmentation approach. I don't think the focus on age will prove effective in triggering the change required.

If we are going to categorise this by age then key factors often associated with getting older people engaged involve finding meaning, leaving a meaningful legacy and involvement with younger generations. A positive approach could be to engender inter-generational perspective and pressure. Younger people are very effective in teaching their grandparents, for example, how to use new technologies, maybe they can help with the environment too?

Olderpreneurs

23% of people starting a business are over the age of 55 and the term "olderpreneur" has been coined to describe them. Many are being forced into this option due to redundancy however there are some positive benefits of this key life change, not least the liberation of being able to make your own decisions.Luke Johnson, Chairman of the Royal College of Arts said last year that "Sustainable self employment can offer financial and social fulfilment. Not only can working for yourself bring material rewards, it is a great way to meet people and stay in touch with people from all generations- as customers, partners, suppliers or perhaps staff".

The case for older people continuing work in some form or other is also backed up by PRIME's Chief Executive Laurie South who states that "research shows that cross-generational companies seem to do better".

Working is not just about generating income but about social connectedness with other generations. Maybe if more and more people of us have to continue working as we get older we will have the added benefit of lower levels of social isolation and better inter-generational understanding.

End to legalised age discrimination

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.

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.

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.

Vision of the future workforce

Friends Provident and the Future Foundation have recently released their "Visions of Britain- The Workforce 2020" report. In it, it states there are currently 5.14m "older workers" (defined as aged 55-70). This will increase to 7.16m in 2020, a pretty significant increase.

It has concerned me for some time that when older workers retire,and their will be significant numbers doing this over the next 15 years, that companies lose both tacit knowledge and corporate memory, both areas you can't easily document in a procedural manual for future workers. I was therefore very interested to read that the "recent recession has made business leaders appreciate the merits of retaining experience, placing older workers in a more powerful position than ever before". This has been partly triggered by the fact that most/ a lot of today's key managers have never had to deal with a recession before and the ones who have the experience are either no longer in the workforce or have been marginalised.

The other key point from the report was that older workers' contribution to productivity for example cannot be easily measured and that the "value of experience needs to be calibrated on a separate scale".

I hope this report helps us to focus more on the need to retain older workers in the workforce both for the mutual benefit of the employer and the individual employee.Both parties can win.

The future's bright?

There was a really interesting feature in the Guardian about solving Japan's ageing problem. (It is a country ageing faster than any other). It's an interesting case study because in the UK we could be faced with similar issues when the baby boomers start to need additional support in older age. Japan is addressing many of its issues through technology (helped in a big way by the motivations of the private sector who see massive market opportunities, particularly in relation to pharmaceuticals, nursing care and medical care.

So our futures could include:
"intelligent toilets" where our waste is automatically analysed and results sent to the GP for action.
Cars which monitor brain activity in older people so that anything out of the ordinary is spotted before an accident happens.
Medical care delivered in the home but remotely, a version of tele-medicine and tele-care.
Easy to swallow food.

I guess if these developments are aimed at keeping people independent in their homes they can be seen as positive, and even hopeful, improvements but only if they also involve lots of human contact too, even if this is via video link, so that we can all be socially included as we get older.

Right to request a second life

The Government will be introducing its next employment legislation in April with its latest employee “right to request” initiative. This time the right is to request training and it follows the now familiar employment process used in its right to request flexible working and right to work beyond retirement age. It is something that for older people could be wrapped up neatly with the impending review of the default retirement age (currently 65) as a right to request a “second life”. A second life as mentioned in a Harvard Business Review (HBR) article:

“Organisations need to take radical steps to help their executives understand that given current life expectancy, everybody in the company will leave at some point and begin a second life. The only question is at what age”. But there are other questions. How do we shape our second lives? What role does the employer play in the transition, if any? How well-equipped are we to deal with, and finance, a life where employment no longer dominates?

Older workers have a further 30 years of influencing and buying and how they are treated on leaving employment and how they view an organisation in the future is a much neglected aspect of managing the “employer brand”.

Employers might like to consider the business benefits of having an ongoing programme of development for older workers to help with their second lives. The approach could also help the employer to address and engage their:
• corporate social responsibilities
• future brand stakeholders and
• potential brand advocates.

Health at Midlife

The Department of Health has recently launched a website to measure and improve your health at mid-life. See www.midlifecheck.co.uk It is designed for people over the age of 40 so that seems to be when "mid-life" starts for the DoH. (Research I've conducted over recent years suggest that most middle-aged people don't regard themselves as middle-aged so possibly an issue on the self-identity subject).

However, I've just keyed in my answers and have been reasonably impressed with the process. It provides really useful and probably uncomfortable information about alcoholic units as well as realistic suggestions about how to increase physical activity which are probably quite easy to do if we are prepared to make changes.

It enables you to save your plan and to check progress over time and I shall be forwarding it to some of my friends as it's quite fun to do.

I'm not that keen on the Doctor who kept on appearing and talking to me, not sure if that is supposed to give me the personal touch but I couldn't quite find how to turn her off (you can have a male Doctor if you prefer!).

Life time design

Following yesterday's blog about "self-identity".The research in the report helps to explain why people, as they get older, are often in denial about needing walking sticks, hearing aids etc because they don't identify with the types of people they perceive as needing them. While a walking stick will actually help to prevent a fall it is quite often only after the event that the need is realised and begrudgingly accepted by the fall victim.

This reality poses a great challenge (how to support people better when they don't feel they need the support) but it also means there are great opportunities for creative solutions. The Royal College for Art for example has for many years been promoting design for life ie everyday items which just grow as you get older without it being a specific "old" product. An example of better design is when B and Q started to target older people designing lighter weight drills, improving colour and choice etc. This helped to open up the market to a much wider customer base such as women. Design for life therefore makes good business sense, it also addresses the issues of ageism and the fact that unplanned for life events can change our ability to function well at any age, and provides flexibility and choice.Maybe if we all started to focus on the customer's lifetime, rather than a simple short term product focus,we could all be much better supported in our older years.

Can do attitude and healthy denial

Another great report and research to share, this time Intel's "Global Ageing Experience" and I'm going to quote from it.

" People want to focus on what they CAN do, not what they CAN'T do. As one woman told us, succinctly and unambiguously: "you are sick when you are lying in bed". That is why so few people self-identify as either ill or old. Many people chose not to use canes, assistive devices in the home etc. This is not just because these devices are socially stigmatising in appearance, but because these devices reinforce a personal identity as someone who is "sick". Many people sought out challenges as ways of keeping themselves sharp -in fact it seemed that it was people's energy level, will to pursue such challenges that most correlated with self-identification as ill or old".

This suggests that denial is a natural part, and possibly healthy response to keeping going when getting older. The issue and challenge for those who provide health, care and support is how to address the need for support,which will increase with age, while understanding and respecting the overall context of self-identity.

More on this tomorrow.

Future of ageing

I've just been reading a really interesting report published by the ILC entitled "Fiction, Facts and Future of Older People and Technology".

It makes a number of really good points, such as, "words do more than describe the world, they create it", which is an interesting comment on the terminology we use to refer to older people and the danger of creating a world that we are trying to avoid by careless attention to detail.

It then mentions the contemporary gerontologist's view of ageing "we should understand ageing not in terms of disability, dependency and disadvantage but as a project of identity, experience and meaning".

I think we'd all find this a more motivating and acceptable approach to ageing and if we can keep on reinforcing these kinds of positive words in relation to getting older then hopefully the creation of this world will follow.

2010: AGE OK

2010 is an interesting year for ageing issues. The Government has brought forward its review of the default retirement age and no doubt the lobbyists are actively presenting their points of view.

To me it is a no-brainer. We should all be able to work for as long as we are able to perform well, whatever our age. This may mean having to change our jobs to enable us to do this and we need to be more realistic about our expectations and employers more prepared to look at flexible options. There needs to be more of a focus on planning for our "second life" of older age where work may feature as part of a portfolio of fulfilling activities. However, most people will still consider retirement at the age their pension kicks in, if they are lucky enough to have one that is.

The second big development this year is the Equality Bill which will ban age discrimination against people over the age of 18 outside of the workplace where good and services are bought. There are going to be lots of exceptions to this so time will tell what kind of an impact this will have.

Age Concern and Help the Aged agreed on their new name last year with the rather uninspiring, but safe, brand name of Age UK. I think they should have called it AGE OK. Two simple words conveying masses of meaning.