Employing Older Workers in Contemporary Organizations

This report discusses the benefits and challenges of employing older workers in contemporary organizations. It focuses on two firms, McDonald's and NHS, and their approaches to hiring and retaining older workers. The report also explores strategies for ensuring a ready supply of labor in the future.

Employing older workers in
contemporary organizations

Table of Contents.
INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................................3
Current situations – Data statistics...................................................................................................3
Business case...................................................................................................................................4
Recommendations on kinds of action an organization may use in order to have ready supply of
labour in the future...........................................................................................................................6
CONCLUSION....................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES.....................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Employing older work force in contemporary organizations means hiring of employee in the
organization who had left working with the organization few years ago. According to Bureau of
labour reports most of the top organization started hiring workforce which consisting of workers of
age 55 or higher (Callanan and Greenhaus, 2016). Organizations believed that to survive in this
competitive environment of fast growing markets, the organizations needs the workforce which is
self skilled as well as the employee on which the company could rely. By analysing numerous
benefits associated with the hiring of older workforce, the companies has started retaining such
employees in their organizations. Moreover, there are some challenges too associated with older
workforce while working in an organization. In this report it has been discussed the two firms
mcDonalds and NHS of United kingdom hiring and retaining older age workforce after observing
several benefits associated while working with them. NHS is the firm of health sector while
mcDonalds is the firm of hospitality services. In this report it has also been discussed the current
data statistics of various assumptions of hiring of older age workforces in the organizations as well
as the percentage increase in the number of older workforces within the years. Additionally, in this
report it has also been discussed the strategies the organizations may adopt in order to have
continues supply of workforce and to ensure there will be no shortage in terms of workforce in the
future.
Current situations – Data statistics
The labour market in United Kingdom is undergoing a significant change, this can be observed by
the current statistics of companies hiring or retains older workforce. According to the current
statistics around every third person in the workforce of an organization is above the age of 50.
Moreover, it seems like more and more companies are hiring the workforce of older employees and
facilitate them in starting a new career at the midlife as well as making them in-retiring.
It is obvious that the right to judge an employee must be on the basis of its skills and knowledge and
not the basis of its age of birth. Thus, there are laws and amendments which protects the employee
from age discrimination, such as The Equality Act 2010 (Hassell and Perrewe, 2016).
The recent studies predicted with the increase in number of older age workforce in organizations by
2020, will reach to as high as 33%. Currently around 11% of the of older age are employed and this
percentage is increasing every quarter of months since May-July 2014.
Moreover, the work productivity of the older age workforce is seemed to be economically active
according to the current data statistics.
The change in this business culture has brought several benefits to the employees as well as to the

organizations of United Kingdom.
As well as the rate of unemployment, above the age 50 is decreasing. These shows people are much
concern about their self dependency for earning their living (Solaja and Ogunola, 2016).
Business case
The various business case issue can be explained as
Diversity
Age is the number, not credential. Various researches has demonstrated that the performance of the
organizational functions has been increased by the diversity in the organization. The teams working
in mixed age group i.e. consisting of older and younger employees will tends to have more
productivity in their work. Mixed age employee helps in decision-making tasks. The
intergenerational collaboration of worker helps in enhancing the functionality of organization. Thus,
recruiting talents of different age groups helps on building diverse as well as experienced workforce
(Pitt-Catsouphes and et.al, 2017).
While considering the organization NHS, as this organization is related to Health sector. Diversity
in age of people working in this organization adds additional benefits in the working of this
organization as well as it increase the productivity too. Older age workforces are experienced which
help in treatment of various critical issues that may arise in the organization.
While considering the hospitality industry mcDonalds diversity of age in the organization play a
very little role as the older worker may have much experience but the issue of more concern over
here is they are more bias too, i.e. slow in working and slow in performing physical tasks. Thus, this
shows diversification of age is a challenge for hiring older workforces in mcDonalds.
Use of experience
The use of experience is the biggest benefit which enforce the organization to hire older workforce.
The older work force is valuable in an organization as they are loyal, focused, highly productive as
well as make the workplace happy. Mentoring the new employees though their experience is the
another plus point of hiring older workforce. The experience of older workers helps the organization
in leadership, decision-making as well as implementations of various processes within the
organization. Sometime these worker add value in sense of perspective as well as build resilience in
order to balance the workforce.
While considering the organization NHS, experience is the most additive benefit in this sector, as
older workforces has might have faced the similar situation in their past practise of health sector.
Experience makes it possible to solve various critical issues which the person might had gone
through in their life (Urbancová and Hudáková, 2015).

While considering the older workforce of mcDonalds, experience of older workforces in this firm
helps in various managerial tasks of the organization such as recruiting of appropriate chef in its
various outlets as well as various other similar tasks. Moreover, with the current statistics it could
be seen that rate of customer satisfaction has been increased by 20%, due to the hiring of
experienced staffs of 60 and plus age or working with mixed age workforce (Hennekam, 2016).
Legal compliance
Employment law and compliance concerns with the legal framework of the employees. The human
resources practices are protected by the various laws and regulations. The major federal law cover
the employees four sections. Labour relationship law, health and safety law, compensation law and
anti discrimination law. All these have the great impact on the employees of the organization.
Organization hiring older age workforces has to keep continuous check on the legal complaints of
the workers of such age group as they must not be discriminated on the basis of age group they
belong to. These workers must be paid on the basis of right to equal pay. Health and safety is the
primary concern to be taken care of in the case of older age workforces.
The legal compliance in NHS shows that, employees of all age group are treated equally and there
is no discrimination on the basis of age in this organization. The older age group workers are
facilitated with the health and safety laws which protects them form some health related issues. The
challenge associated with hiring old age workforce is as they can't frequent changes in the
environment thus, it must be provision given to older workforces to take leave, but continuous
absence of worker for long time could be a phase of challenge for the organization.
The legal complaints in the McDonald's benefit the older workforces working for this organization
but on the other hand McDonald's has to face challenges for hiring older workforces on the note of
legal compliances (Hennekam, 2016).
Ageing population
The ageing population in the workforce means people beyond certain age working in organization.
There are several factors due to which older population is still working in the organization as due to
poor financial conditions of the people of older age group and can't retire at earlier age. Shortage of
talent is the another factor that enforces the organization to hire or retain older age workforce.
Moreover, many people enjoy work in the social aspect, such as working with older workers as they
assume that it will increase the productivity in their work (Vasconcelos, 2015). There are some
challenges too associated for working with older age group such as old workers are bias, as well as
they have absenteeism,
McDonald's has the policy of recruiting which is called 'hire with smile' and since mcDonalds hire
for qualities not qualification. Thus, this organization encourages the older workforces to work for

their restaurants. It has been observed by an survey that around 50% or old age workers agree to go
an extra mile to deliver on the request of customer without any hesitation in order to give the best
possible customer service.
NHS Portsmouth retain older workforces as they focus on individuals abilities, competencies,
amount of knowledge, skills as well as on experiences. These all provide the benefits for the
organization by hiring the older workforces. While the challenges faced by the organization by
ageing population could be their sudden risk to sick issues, environmental adjustments is the
another challenged faced by hiring older workforces. Moreover, they might need revised working
hours (Armstrong‐Stassen, and Ursel, 2016).
Recommendations on kinds of action an organization may use in order to have ready supply
of labour in the future.
The workforce planning generally requires seven steps of processes
Layout the plan and a schedule
It is the first step in the workforce planning which suggest planning for teams and management
which oversights the complete business unit and suggest when the processes will be implementation
in order to carry out the task (August and Quintero, 2016).
Perform a staffing assessment
Benchmarking the organization by analysing size of staff as well as skills for the selected criteria.
This process focuses over assessment of staffing by examining tasks, processes, outputs as well as
work drivers. Thus, the result of this step is used to develop model organization. it is relatively
quick and simple process as this step deals with the continuous reviewing of business as well as
change in business environment. This data can be generated in every few years or after the
functioning of some business unit.
Develop demand data
For meeting the business objective, the organization needs to develop the demand data by analysing
requirement of employee as well as the desired skill requirement for the completion of various
objectives. Thus, staffing is destination whereas projection of demand data shows the process to
reach there.
Develop supply data
This analysation is done by projecting the current population over the planning horizon. This step
requires assumption which concerns with transfers, resignation, deaths and retirement of the
employee working in the organization. Thus, if it sees supply is lesser than it takes into account
hiring of new employees (Ainsworth and Hardy, 2016).
Compare demand and supply data

This comparison is done to determine the future gap or surplus situations for both numbers and
skills of the workforce. Thus, for both, success of the organization and to identifying where the
organization is at risk. This comparison of demand and supply of workforces is done (Bal and
Jansen, 2015).
Develop the workforce plan
This step is carried out to communicate the plan of the business objective to the entire workforce
assigned for the task, thus to make organization business plan clear to all (Daniel and Heywood,
2018).
Evaluate and update the plan
it is the last step in the workforce planning for ensuring continuous supply of skilled workforce.
This step ensures that once the task is assigned to the workforce the evaluation of task must be done
frequently by the assigned work force.
Thus, above are the several steps taken by organization to ensure having a ready supply of
workforces for the needs of the future (Dychtwald and Baxter, 2016).
CONCLUSION
This report can be concluded as, employing older work force in contemporary organizations means
hiring of employee in the organization who had left working with the organization few years ago.
organizations believed that to survive in this competitive environment of fast growing markets, the
organizations needs the workforce which is self skilled as well as the employee on which the
company could rely on (Hogarth and Barth, 2018). Thus, in this report it has been discussed the two
firms mcDonalds and NHS of United kingdom hiring and retaining older age workforce after
observing several benefits as well as challenges associated while working with these firms. Lastly,
this report shows the strategies used by organization to have ready supply of workers in the future
(Brooke, 2015).

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Ainsworth, S. and Hardy, C., 2016. The enterprising self: An unsuitable job for an older worker.
Organization, 15(3), pp.389-405.
Armstrong‐Stassen, M. and Ursel, N.D., 2016. Perceived organizational support, career satisfaction,
and the retention of older workers. Journal of occupational and organizational psychology,
82(1), pp.201-220.
August, R.A. and Quintero, V.C., 2016. The role of opportunity structures in older women workers'
careers. Journal of Employment Counseling, 38(2), pp.62-81.
Bal, P.M. and Jansen, P.G., 2015. Idiosyncratic deals for older workers: Increased heterogeneity
among older workers enhance the need for I-deals. In Aging workers and the employee-
employer relationship (pp. 129-144). Springer, Cham.
Brooke, L., 2015. Human resource costs and benefits of maintaining a mature-age workforce.
International journal of manpower, 24(3), pp.260-283.
Callanan, G.A. and Greenhaus, J.H., 2016. The baby boom generation and career management: A
call to action. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 10(1), pp.70-85.
Daniel, K. and Heywood, J.S., 2018. The determinants of hiring older workers: UK evidence.
Labour Economics, 14(1), pp.35-51.
Dychtwald, K. and Baxter, D., 2016. Capitalizing on the new mature workforce. Public Personnel
Management, 36(4), pp.325-334.
Hassell, B.L. and Perrewe, P.L., 2016. An examination of beliefs about older workers: do
stereotypes still exist?. Journal of organizational behavior, 16(5), pp.457-468.
Hennekam, S., 2016. Competencies of older workers and its influence on career success and job
satisfaction. Employee Relations, 38(2), pp.130-146.
Hogarth, T. and Barth, M.C., 2018. Costs and benefits of hiring older workers: a case study of
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Pitt-Catsouphes and et.al, 2017. Innovative pathways to meaningful work: Older adults as
volunteers and self-employed entrepreneurs. In The Palgrave handbook of age diversity and
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Vasconcelos, A.F., 2015. Older workers: some critical societal and organizational challenges.
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