Last week saw the launch of the Healthy Ageing consensus statement, produced by Public Health England and The Centre for Ageing Better. The Council for Work and Health fully supports the vision of the consensus statement; for England to be the best place in the world to grow older. Good work can provide people with a sense of purpose, belonging and self-respect as well as the known health and financial benefits that work gives. However, it’s becoming more important than ever to recognise that older people are not only choosing to work for longer because they can but also because they have to for financial means. And with this, we are seeing a profound shift in our workforce demographic.

Older workers bring a broad range of skills and experience, loyalty, stability and reliability to the workplace and this is becoming important for employers as we see skills shortages in specialised roles across all industry sectors. Employers need to have good, proactive age management practices in place to meet the needs of all staff as their workforce ages.

We must have a realistic perspective with our ageing workforce and understand the physical and mental changes with come with the ageing. An understanding that we are living longer with long-term health conditions and advances in medical care enable us to continue to work whilst managing these health conditions and living our lives well. What is of vital importance is how we can raise awareness for employers, employees and healthcare practitioners on how work can be adapted to support people to stay in work for longer and still be well. There are many ways to do this not least looking at how others approach it, such as the good practice seen in employers such as BMW and B&Q, considering flexible working opportunities, adapting business strategies where they take advantage of older people’s rich experience, giving them mentoring and consultative projects.  It may also be about providing access to additional training or coaching to support career moves later in life.

Proactive support, in the form of access to wellbeing initiatives and early interventions such as access to occupational health, physiotherapy and psychological therapies, have been proven to be very effective and supportive to both the older employee and the business. Employers who take a solution focussed approach to a diverse and multi-generational workforce have benefitted in terms of productivity and retention of experience.

For individuals as well, it is important they consider the fact that they may need to work differently or in a different capacity in the later stages of their career. There are many ways to do this and employers and local organisations can provide guidance and support to help individuals consider and plan for this.

It is important to remember that age is a protective characteristic of the Equality Act and employers have the same responsibilities for health and safety of older employees as they do for all their employees.

We urge employers and society to remove the stereotype of older people and their ability to contribute to the workforce, it does not reflect the older worker to in today’s society and we are simply not oldat 60 anymore. All workers should be treated individually as any changes in health are very different in each person. Adapting work practices based on individual needs is very important and assessing it on a case by case means and not making assumptions based on out of date stereotypes.

The Council for Work and Health welcomes the opportunity this consensus brings to focus on promoting good health and good work to benefit of both older employees and the businesses they work for.  Find out more about the consensus statement and its five pillars here .

We urge as many employers and organisations as possible to sign up to the consensus statement and raise awareness about positive approaches to successful ageing workforce policies.