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27 Jul 2021
by Amy McSweeney

How better support for older workers benefits both employees and employers

For many employers, skills shortages are becoming a real problem, with figures from the KPMG and REC UK Report on Jobs survey, compiled by IHS Markit, showing lower staff supply and rising vacancies at the end of May 2021. With immigration from the European Union reduced, and shrinking numbers of younger workers, it is becoming ever harder to plug the gaps in the workforce.

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Part of the solution to this issue is providing greater support for older workers. With an ageing population and a rising State Pension age, many people are having to work for longer. And yet more than 800,000 people aged over 50 are involuntarily out of work – the single biggest factor pushing them out of employment being poor health.   

The Centre for Ageing Better’s new report Working Well? asked people in their 50s and 60s with long-term health conditions about their work, and how the pandemic is changing the way that they work.

The right type of support

Many of the people we spoke to had received good support – both before and during the pandemic. What that support looked like was different for everybody, but it was often more about practice than policy. Formal and informal support, particularly from a line manager, was valued just as highly as making adjustments or providing specialist equipment, such as an ergonomic chair.

But not everyone received the support they needed, and for some this was because policies did not translate on the ground. Caroline, who lives with arthritis and cancer, felt ‘let down’ by her manager, as she ‘did not understand the practices and policies the organisation has about sickness absence’.

Everyone we spoke to for the research was in work at the beginning of the pandemic, and many enjoyed work not only because of its financial necessity, but because of the social benefits and sense of purpose it gave them. But not everyone felt they could be open about their health condition at work. Some felt that there would be a stigma around disclosing their condition – and that their employer might perceive them as ‘lazy’ or vulnerable.

With the full effects of the pandemic yet to be felt in the labour market, many of the people we spoke to were worried about competing with younger, able-bodied candidates in a tight labour market, feeling they would face both ageism and ableism from employers.

What can we learn from the pandemic?

It is clear that the ‘natural’ mass experiment of homeworking was a double-edged sword for a lot of the older workers we spoke to. While it might have allowed people to have a greater degree of flexibility in managing the symptoms of their condition, many felt that remote working worsened their mental health. Distance from line managers and colleagues also made spotting when people were struggling more difficult.

During the pandemic, most employers continued to provide good support to their employees, as they had always done. But those organisations who were not supportive before the pandemic, have not improved during the last 16 months. In response, we are calling on the government to introduce a single enforcement body for workers’ rights. While we welcome the government’s commitment to establishing this body in its consultation response to Health is everyone’s business: proposals to reduce ill health-related job loss, this needs to be done as a matter of urgency to protect workers as industries fully re-open. Most employers are meeting their obligations, but they need support from the government to facilitate change for people with long-term conditions.  

What can employers do?

Employers can take much from the natural experiment of remote working brought on by the pandemic. It would be useful to review the new practices they put in place to manage the rapid shift to remote working and adopt them into permanent policies and ways of working. Also important is considering what support was missing in hindsight. It’s incredibly important that employers speak to their staff about their future working arrangements and expectations in light of the pandemic, what’s worked well and what hasn’t. We've developed a flexible working toolkit for employers (and employees) to provide structure to those conversations.

Employers should be aspiring to cultivate an explicitly anti-ageist and anti-ableist culture, ensuring that everyone’s contributions are equally valued. Actively communicating that you appreciate older workers and those with long-term conditions in the workforce is likely to open conversations with people who felt they could not disclose their condition before.

For those conversations to work for both the organisation and the employee, employers need to invest in line management training to facilitate conversations about mental health as well as long-term conditions.

Our workforce is ageing and embedding age-friendly employment and recruitment practices now will benefit employers in both the short and long term. Many employers are already providing good support to employees who have disclosed long-term conditions, but we need to work together to ensure that everyone feels able to talk about their condition and gets the support they need to stay in work.

With the right support, older workers with long-term health conditions can thrive at work and provide employers with the skills they desperately need.

The author is Amy McSweeney, evidence officer at the Centre for Ageing Better.

This article is provided by the Centre for Ageing Better.