Aging Workforce

University Degree Business and Administrative studies

ABSTRACT

Australia is facing a potential workforce crisis. As its population ages, a relatively low number of mature workers are choosing to remain in the workforce. By 2016, the number of individuals aged 60-64 is expected to almost double. Australia currently has one of the lowest workforce participation rates for older people in the developed world. It is estimated that there are approximately six working individuals in Australia for every person over 65 years. In August 2003 address at the Symposium on Mature Age Employment, Australian Prime Minister John Howard asked the government, employers and individual employees to play an important role in staving off a major national crisis.

In the Hudson report 2004, it is argued that Australian employers have failed to recognize that they have a reducing labour market and only one third of the Australian employers encourage old age workers to stay in the workforce. The Hudson Report 2004 has uncovered the extent to which employers are not pro-actively seeking to attract and retain mature aged workers. Management of an ageing workforce is a complex issue and, to be effective, needs basic knowledge of the relationship between work ability and work demands. Large Corporation like Australia Post have introduced policies to actively seek out over 45’s for their workforce. This paper discusses the strategies and research on Australia post’s employer strategic responses to the aging workforce.

INTRODUCTION

Australia Post is providing mail and parcel services across Australia. Australia post is one of the organizations which responded to the aging workforce employment among other few organizations. Australia Post’s strategic approach to age management the broad objective of maintaining work force sustainability is helping the corporation’s current and future needs. It is noticed that the average age of Australia Post employees increased to 44.5 years in 2009 from 43.9 in 2008.

Organisation like Australia post relay heavily on the employees. Australia Post first completed analysis on its workforce demographics as a whole and in groups. One of the areas which they initiated the program was customer service. As the population gets older it seems to be important that the shape of the organization reflects the shape of the population itself. For example the customers were very old and the employees where very young where there is an issue whether the workforce able to understand the customer requirements. Australia Post continued to address its impact through-

A web based retirement planning centre, which provides an extensive range of on line tools, activities and Information to support all employees’ plan for retirement.
Transition to retirement seminars working flexibility, including the development of a retirement transition framework.
Knowledge transfer – a detailed methodology to capture critical expertise prior to key personnel retiring.

AGE WORK FORCE INITIATIVE - SUMMARY OF ACTIONS / AREAS OF WORK

There were many actions required and areas of work was considered in developing the strategy to manage the aging workforce in Australia Post, they are

Labour Source or Supply.
Work Arrangements.
Employee Benefits.
Skill Development.
Sustainable Work Ability.
Retirement Income.

1. Labour Source or Supply.

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AGE WORK FORCE INITIATIVE - SUMMARY OF ACTIONS / AREAS OF WORK

There were many actions required and areas of work was considered in developing the strategy to manage the aging workforce in Australia Post, they are

Labour Source or Supply.
Work Arrangements.
Employee Benefits.
Skill Development.
Sustainable Work Ability.
Retirement Income.

1. Labour Source or Supply.

The labour source and supply includes the study of demographic shape of post by division or occupational group to determine whether they are optimal or other special interventions are required. These studies included workforce planning including the demographic analysis is continuing by corporate and divisional human resource groups. The communication program has been introduced dealing with

Intention of post to encourage people to remain at work longer.
Combating age stereotypes.
The responsibilities of individuals and Post in regard to career management and skill maintenance over a work life.
The relationship of skill currency to the employability.

2. Work Arrangements

The work arrangements studies included

The initiatives to facilitate increased job mobility.
The study of best practice approaches.
The development of a HR reporting Key Performance Indicator(KPI).
The study of options for better career management for project team members.
The revising the Performance Management system to ensure a formal career planning process every 5 years.

3. Employee benefits

The Employee benefits studies included

The consideration of remuneration systems that reward technical excellence.
A study on the most appropriate structures for superannuation as part of a reward package to attract younger workers and retain older.
The study of best practices in fostering and rewarding innovation and technical excellence in leading edge organizations.

4. Skill Development

The skills development studies included the exploration of ways to encourage a learning and development culture with a view to staff maintaining skill currency of a working life:

Introducing Key Performance Indicator’s related to learning and career management
Incorporating evaluation of learning, knowledge and personal growth within future staff attitude surveys.

5. Sustainable Work Ability

The Sustainable Work Ability studies included

The examination underway of the possible application of the internationally recognised Work Ability Index (WAI) as a means of monitoring the work capabilities of all workers and the work arrangements necessary to maximise those capabilities.
Develop a methodology for systematically examining the Health and Safety implications into aging and work.

6. Retirement Income

The retirement income studies included the development of understanding of taxation and superannuation implications in re-engaging retired workers.

THE WORK AGING SURVEY

In prior to the preparations for the aging management a survey was conducted on the basis of areas of work and actions .There were two different surveys conducted. The purpose of the preliminary survey was to provide the following information’s for the strategy

Provide better understanding of the retirement intentions of Australia post’s mature age workforce.
Provide a better understanding of the factors leading to a person’s decision to retire.
Provide information to enable Australia post’s to lift participation rates beyond traditional retirement at 55.
Long-term - to ensure a continuing supply of skilled labour over next 5-10 years.

The preliminary survey was the study of age 45+ populations across Australia Post. An approximate of 15,500 employees was invited to participate in the survey. The survey ended with 55% response rate. The preliminary survey completion was encouraged with competition to obtain maximum participation. The following questions were asked in the preliminary survey

The employees retirement intentions
what is shaping these intentions
what would encourage them to stay beyond traditional retirement age
how they are planning for retirement
what they plan to do during their retirement

The survey played a key role to shape the requirements of the employees in long term. The key findings of the preliminary survey was

4778 who are planning to retire over the next five years (a 54% increase).
Over half the respondents intend to work during their retirement.
Twenty-two percent of people reported that they did not intend to work at all once they retired from Australia Post.

The key elements highlighted for the reasons for leaving the Australian post was

Early retirement
Managers / self-select
Lack of opportunity
Learning & Development

The key elements highlighted for the reasons for staying in the Australian post was

Emotional attachment
Learning and development
Flexible work conditions

The purpose of the secondary survey was to provide the overview of Life after Post project. The survey was designed Unique for Australia. An approximate of 3,500 recent retirees invited to participate in the survey. The survey ended with 50% response rate. The following questions were asked in the secondary survey

How their retirement expectations had varied from their retirement experience.
Factors that led them to retire.
What they have done during their retirement.
What they would have done differently.

The key findings of the secondary survey was

30% of people are working.
Of these, 50% did not expect to work when they retired from AP.
38% were interested in returning to work at AP.
These people could provide a valuable pool of flexible or contingent workers.

USE OF SURVEY OUTCOMES TO ACHIEVE RESULTS

Initiatives Completed:

Labour risk and workforce planning has become part of the business planning process.
Policies that support flexible work for older people include:

48/52 or purchased leave (46% take up is from mature age workers)
Employment Break (100% take up is from mature age workers)
Carer’s Leave (60% take up is from mature age workers)
Conversion from full-time to part time (70% take up is from mature age workers)

Job Sharing (42% take up is from mature age workers)

Initiatives Completed continued:

Development of an “Elder Care” kit – it provides an insight into some of the changes and challenges that come with ageing and how to cope with these. It also emphasises how Post can help its ageing employees.
An Employee Health and Well-being Program has been developed to deliver tangible quality of life benefits for all employees and productivity benefits for the corporation through education, support services and targeted initiatives.
Our Australia Post intranet site has a dedicated section on work and ageing.

Initiatives underway:

Currently developing a workforce planning tool kit that supports our workforce planning framework and is aligned to business strategy.
Currently developing an Ageing strategy. The focus of the strategy is on providing an integrated systematic approach to ageing ‘embedding it in the way we do business. A number of prioritised initiatives will support the implementation of the strategy.
Currently undertaking workability study with Swinburne. Research funded by the Commonwealth Government to develop practical guidelines to manage occupational risks and individual vulnerabilities, thereby increasing the work ability of older workers.

CONCLUSION

Within Australia, a number of employees are participating in workforces where employers are failing to take the demographic change seriously. Accusations like these are often appearing in every articles and journals in Australia about the aging workforce management in the Australian organizations. Now organizations like Australian Post have approached the issue with more serious reserch and successfully implemented the strategy to which successfully manages the aging workforce. It is proved that their approach in the year 2006 increased the workforce and improved the performance by 2009. The study indicates that mature age worker have increased their share of the workforce from 8 percent to 11.5 percent.

There are certain issues that might affect the mature workforce for example the cost impact of hiring and retaining more older workers can be quite modest. So the part-time re-employment opportunities to workers who have been retired from the company can help the workers who take the offer suffer no loss of retiree benefits and can reduce the cost impact. It is very important to balance the value and cost at the same time.

The importance of reserch in aging workforce cannot be neglected .The results of the implementations by the organizations like Australia post shows great opportunities to reduce the problem of labour shortage and productivity problems.

REFERENCES

Mackay, Alan. “Mature Age Workers: Sustaining Out Future Labor Force.” An Ageless Workforce -Opportunities for Business’ Symposium Conference Paper.
Nixon, Sherrill. “Save Australia – Keep working.” Sydney Morning Herald. August 28, 2003.
Howard, J. Symposium on Mature Age Employment. August 2003.
Hudson Report (2004) Employment & HR Trends Australia – Jan-March 2004 – Part 3 Mature Age workers.
Australia post, Annual Report, 2008-2009
Australia post, Equal Employment Opportunity Report 2008-2009.
Australia Post- Workforce Planning and our Ageing Workforce, May 2006
Julia Farrell, A current debate on employer’s responses to an ageing workforce, Monash University, AIRAANZ 2005, Page No. 62.
Paulette T. Beatty and Roemer M.S. Visser, THRIVING ON AN AGING WORKFORCE, Strategies for Organizational and Systemic Change, KRIEGER PUBLISHING COMPANY, 2005.
; ; and , The Aging Workforce: Realities, Myths, and Implications for Organizations, Springer Netherlands,2005.
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