As people grow older, they can face unique challenges to staying in employment. This could be family or caring responsibilities, health issues or the desire to reduce hours and increase work/life balance. 

Offering workers the right support means they can keep working for longer.

It has become less relevant to think of older workers and their ‘retirement’ but more about the next stage of their life, beyond paid employment.

Here we offer some tips on how to retain the older workers in your business. 

This may involve offering flexibility, adapting a role, retraining, upskilling, and ensuring workers continue to feel satisfied at work and valued by their team.

Build a reputation as an age-friendly employer, starting with commitment from leadership right through to the everyday policies and practices. 

Support and train managers to lead an older and diverse workforce, including: 

• myth busting
• avoiding ageist stereotypes and assumptions about older workers
• addressing ageism as it comes up.

Promoting a healthy work environment and investing in the health and wellbeing of your staff is good for business productivity. 

Staff who are happy and healthy take less time off and stay in roles for longer.

Facilitate two-way mentoring between younger and older workers to pass on skills and knowledge. This can help to build business and staff capability, trust and strong relationships.

Best practice for an age-diverse workplace

How might your support differ for older workers? Here are some tips to help.

• Provide career development and planning for all staff, no matter how long they have been working for you.
• Offer regular and positive conversations to find out what is important for your older workers. This could be about the contributions they want to make and what they need to be the best they can be at work (for example, flexibility, training or job redesign).
• Remember to review regularly as the needs of your older workers may evolve across their working life.
• Consider offering flexible working arrangements, for example, part-time work, job sharing, working from home and flexible working hours. Offer adjustments needed for health conditions or disability.
• Support employees as they transition away from paid work. This could involve reducing or changing their hours of work, roles or tasks.

Offer ongoing training and upskilling to all employees, no matter what age or life stage they are to maintain their employability and show that their contribution to the workplace is valued.

Ensure training suits everyone’s preferred learning styles. Consider offering training on digital tools and technology to older workers. They can readily learn them with the right support and training.

Training and learning