Human Resource Management: Employing Older Workers Report

This report delves into the critical aspects of employing older workers within the framework of Human Resource Management (HRM). It begins by examining various strategies for integrating older employees, such as flexible work arrangements (part-time jobs, job-sharing, telework, and snowbird programs) and phased retirement options (DROPs), analyzing their effectiveness in attracting and retaining experienced individuals. The report highlights the benefits of employing older workers, including their experience, leadership skills, strong work ethic, and reliability. It then addresses the key challenges organizations face, such as the need for training to adapt to technological changes, potential resistance to new working methods, and difficulties in adapting to modern demands. The report concludes with recommendations for successful integration, emphasizing the importance of aligning objectives, providing adequate training, fostering open communication, and recognizing the value of experience. The report underscores the importance of HRM in leveraging the skills and experience of older workers for organizational success.

HUMAN RESOURCE
MANAGEMENT-
EMPLOYING OLDER
WORKERS IN
CONTEMPORARY
ORGANISATIONS

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................3
1. Strategies for employing older people and analysing their effectiveness................................3
2. Key challenges in employing older workers...........................................................................5
3. Recommendations....................................................................................................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Employing older people has become an economic and social need that the world has to
adopt and employ in business decisions and human resource planning as the life expectancy in
people has been increasing. Older and younger workers both can offer real business benefits
when they make the most of the range of skills and experience brought by the workers of
different ages. Employment of older people in workplace has to be incorporated in the human
resource planning through various programs and creation of opportunities, which even has
various benefits for the business. This business report as per the case study will conduct a
criticism and debate on the contemporary and primary arguments regarding this theory and
practice in the human resources management and about ethical expectations which are countered
while assessing the contributions to the organisation. The primary strategies for employing the
older people will be elaborates and its effectiveness will be analysed. The key challenges in the
employment of the older generation will be valuated along with recommendations.
MAIN BODY
1. Strategies for employing older people and analysing their effectiveness
It is the need for the organisations to attract and retain the older workers who are more
experienced, skilled and knowledgeable so that they can pass on their knowledge and values
among the workplace and also to mentor the younger employees. The employers have to
improve the hiring and retention of the older workers by creating the flexible work arrangements
and also offering them informal and formal phased options of retirement. In order to do this, the
employers must think about the practices and the strategies which can be helpful in achieving the
objective. These are as follows:
 Flexible Work Arrangements
This facilitates the older workers who do not wish to work traditionally in full-time
schedules because of some reasons like taking care of aging spouses or parents or spending time
with grandchildren. Also, they can be suffering from worsening health, declining energy and
stamina, or may be having more preference over time for sacrificing the income. Some of the
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older people may have enough savings which do not motivate them to do job (Brussig and Leber,
2019).
Some of the strategies which the employers can provide for the employment of older people are
as follows:
 The employer can allow the older people to do part-time jobs.
 They can even allow the employees for job-sharing.
 The company can change the jobs which can facilitate the older employees to work part-time
along with giving new opportunities of seeking new challenges.
 The company can also arrange some telework arrangements which allows the older people to
work from home or a place nearby rather forcing them to come at the workplace and do the
job. Though, these are not possible for such jobs which needs proper equipment and face-to-
face interaction with the customers but for some jobs the company can provide this
opportunity to employ older people (Current strategies to employ and retain older workers,
2008).
 The employers can follow the snowbird programs which allows the older employees for
shuttling between two locations seasonally.
 Phased retirement options
The employers are also adapting some strategies in which they can accommodate their
interest of workers in phased retirement. These include allowing the employees to continue
working and even without losing the benefits of traditional pension, creating formal plans for
moving the older employees to work part-time, rehiring the employees who got retirement and
employ them as part-time workers and to use the former employees as contractors (McFadden,
2020). There are various plans which can help in the employment of the older employees which
are as follows:
Deferred Retirement Option Plans (DROPs) allow the participants of DB pension plan by
allowing them to work beyond their age of retirement along with taking the benefits of pensions.
These are mainly applicable in the government sector such as public schools where there is a
shortage of teachers and they force the teachers who are already retired to work again as
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employees (Egdell and et.al., 2020). The person if denies to continue working, they get the
pension benefits and those who agree to it, get the pension benefits later.
These strategies are very effective in employing the older generation in the workplace as
they contribute effectively to the business. Strategies like flexible working arrangements and
phased retirements are significant for older people due to certain limitation in terms of physical
and well-being. Older people are even projected to outpace the millennials in many aspects and
thus it is essential for business to find ways to employ older people to achieve various benefits
and stay competitive. It also helps in maintenance of a strong wok ethic and increase the
employee engagement and job satisfaction in existing employees who consider such
organisations highly loyal, respectful and visionary. The older people may not be tech savvy but
do have years of experience in management and other skills that can benefit the company. Older
people have good leadership skills, they know what is required, they are loyal, they promote
good work ethics, and they have strong networks. Older people are valuable assets, have a wide
range of expertise, knowledge, skills, showing willingness to work, learning new skills. Apart
from that the older people are more reliable and also show lower rates of absenteeism and
turnover.
2. Key challenges in employing older workers
There are a lot of challenges which are going to be faced when there are older workers
which are going to be present in an organization which needs to be controlled so that there is
going to be effective functioning and reputation which can be maintained. Organizations in the
market need experienced skills and knowledge of the market which the older workers will have
in them and can help the organization to have more effective performance and control on the
business (Urbancová and Fajcikova, 2019). With older workers there are going to be a lot of
drawbacks as well which would come with them and would be discussed in the further report as
well so that there is going to be higher functioning.
 Training
There are a lot of changes which are coming in the market and the older working employees
of the organization will have to be trained effectively and would require a lot of time as well.
There has to be good transparency with them because they can give in their inputs on the
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changes as well if they are going to be effective in the organization therefore training and
decisions with them is important for the organization to have in the market. Older staff is not
going to be aware of technological changes which businesses in the market make in order to be
able to match the demands and expectations of the customers on time which is going to be good
for the reputation of the business in the market.
 Set way of working
Older staff is going to use their old methods of working which is going to make the
functioning and operations of the organization get limited and that is not good for the reputation
of the company. Old ways of working needs to change with time and the older staff will not be
able to make the organization have higher profit margins. The techniques and methods which the
older staff used in other organizations are going to be permanent which is not going to be helpful
in the modern time and the organization will not be able to operate effectively in the market
(Brewster, Gooderham and Mayrhofer, 2016). There is going to be more communication which
is going to be present when there are older employees working in an organization and that is
going to make the performance and competitive advantage of the business also increase in the
market.
 Unable to change in modern time
In the modern time there are a lot of changes which are taking place regarding demands and
technological aspect in the company so that the organization will be able to match the lifestyle
and targets of the customers. Changing the mentality and beliefs of the older staff is going to be
difficult for the organization in the market to be able to match the demands and expectations of
the customers (McCormick and Wollmering, 2017). Though the skills and knowledge in the
employees of older staff is going to be present which can be used effectively by the company in
the right way so that the organization will be able to develop and have better functioning for
them in the market.
3. Recommendations
It is very important to make the older workers be able to share the same objectives and
targets which are going to be set so that there is going to be higher performance which is going
to be present. The older employees have a lot of doubts and need full information before they
start doing anything new which is going to be difficult for the organization to make sure that the
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employees are following them. Training and development is going to take a lot of time in an
organization which is having older staff in the company and that is going to make the
productivity level is impacted but the loyalty and punctuality is going to be higher in them as
well which is a great factor for the organization to have (Krishnan and Scullion, 2017). The
company will have to get in experienced older staff so that there is going to be more knowledge
and skills which can come in the company and improving them is also going to be easier for the
company in order to be able to operate effectively. The hearing and listening of the older
employees is high and the younger employees are very careful which is going to make the
organization have higher performance which is going to make the organization have higher
performance. Commitment is present in the older staffs which are present in the market so that
there is going to be higher performance and the company is also going to have higher reputation
and brand value in the market (Cook and Rougette, 2017).
Older staff needs a lot of patients in the organization so that there is going to be smoother
functioning and operations which is going to take place in the organization for higher
functioning. Hiring older employees is going to make the productivity of the organization have
lower performance and make the company have lower operations which is going to make the
demands of the customers not be matched. HR of the company will have to give in their best by
maintaining the relationship with the older staff of the company so that there is going to be
higher satisfaction level of them which is going to be present. There are going to be mistakes
which younger staffs is going to make in the organization but the older staff is going to have
experience and that mistake can be improved and even not take place which can impact the
reputation of the company in the market (Fasbender and Gerpott, 2020). Training the employees
who are experienced is easier since they will have the right knowledge of the market which is
going to help the company be able to achieve their targets and goals very quickly in the market.
CONCLUSION
From the above report it was concluded that older people can be employed in the current
workplaces through and employers have to enhance the hiring and retention of the older workers
by creating the flexible work arrangements and also offering them informal and formal phased
options of retirement. Strategies like allowing the older people to do part-time jobs, allowing the
employees for job-sharing and ability to change the jobs which can facilitate the older employees
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to work part-time along with giving new opportunities of seeking new challenges. Organisations
can even some telework for the older people to work from home or nearby places rather forcing
them to come at the workplace. However, the key challenges in employing older people are
inability of older people to accept changes in the workplace dynamics and training related issues,
they have an established way of working and it is tough to change that and employ flexibility,
inability to change in modern times in terms of mentality, lifestyle and behaviour. In order to
counter the above challenges, various recommendations were illustrated such as training and
development as per the pace of the employees, giving those titles and job roles to the older
employees that they have high expertise upon, accommodating flexibility in workplace, looking
at pay equity on the basis of job level and not tenure, bringing diversity into the workplace
through DEI programs, giving more supervisor, mentor, consultant and managerial roles to the
older people.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Brewster, C., Gooderham, P.N. and Mayrhofer, W., 2016. Human resource management: The
promise, the performance, the consequences. Journal of Organizational Effectiveness:
People and Performance.
Brussig, M. and Leber, U., 2019. After early retirement: the variety of human-resource strategies
of firms towards older employees. Journal for Labour Market Research. 53(1) p.15.
Cook, S.L. and Rougette, V., 2017. Talent management and older workers: Later life career
development. In Ageing, organisations and management (pp. 113-140). Palgrave Macmillan,
Cham.
Egdell, V. and et.al., 2020. Age management in the workplace: manager and older worker
accounts of policy and practice. Ageing & Society. 40(4). pp.784-804.
Fasbender, U. and Gerpott, F.H., 2020. To share or not to share: A social-cognitive
internalization model to explain how age discrimination impairs older employees’
knowledge sharing with younger colleagues. European Journal of Work and Organizational
Psychology. pp.1-18.
Krishnan, T.N. and Scullion, H., 2017. Talent management and dynamic view of talent in small
and medium enterprises. Human Resource Management Review. 27(3). pp.431-441.
McCormick, L. and Wollmering, R., 2017. Seeking Common Objectives: How research-driven
practice can align organisational strategy and volunteering values. Third Sector
Review. 23(1). p.145.
Urbancová, H. and Fajcikova, A., 2019. Organisational factors influencing the application of age
management. Journal of Business and Retail Management Research. 14(1).
Online
Current strategies to employ and retain older workers, 2008. [ONLINE] Available through :<
https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/31531/411626-Current-Strategies-to-
Employ-and-Retain-Older-Workers.PDF>
McFadden, K., 2020. 7 tips for hiring older workers. [ONLINE]. Available through:
<https://www.inc.com/guides/201104/7-tips-for-hiring-older-workers.html>
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