‘Stick in the muds’ or loyal servants?

A recent article in The Daily Telegraph highlighted the issues surrounding older employees. We’ve a constructive look at the prejudices and issues surrounding staff believed to be not as productive as their younger counterparts.

The article stated  “Hundreds of thousands more people will be forced to work longer before collecting their state pension, and yet employers appear reluctant to accept the change… Prejudices remain that the over-65s will take more sick leave than younger staff, be slower to adapt to new ways of working and be more difficult to manage than younger members of staff.”

The challenges for employers are considered to be –

• How to manage the performance for workers that they consider to be slowing down?
• How will formal management processes be received by an employee that may have been working for over 50 years?
• What risks exist for the employers in relation to age discrimination and can they prove consistency across all employee capability and performance management issues?
• How can the employer be confident that they are going to get the maximum performance and productivity by hiring a worker that would have previously been considered at retirement age?
• What measure / assessments can be implemented to assist with performance management?

We believe that employers are increasingly concerned about hiring ‘older workers’ since the abolition of the retirement age, despite the fact that older workers offer a wealth of experience and knowledge. Employers are concerned about managing their capability and performance through formal processes.