A profound change is happening in the workplace - how does it affect you?
Although perhaps I should rephrase that…
Even though they’re in their early 20s, they are not really thinking about starting careers at all.
Many are doing a second degree, even if they are not particularly academic. Their reasoning seems to amount to: “Why not?”
Others are planning to travel, or to spend a couple of years working shifts in a pub before they get a job they really want. I don’t mean to sound like an old fuddy-duddy, but it wasn’t like that in my day.
Everyone I knew finished their degrees, and started submitting CVs.
The number of 100-year-olds in the UK has almost doubled since 2002.3
This is just one sign of a profound change happening in the workplace.
It is a change that, as an employer, is very much on my mind.
And it’s one which I believe all of us should be talking about much more.
My children’s generation know that they might very well live into their 80s, 90s and even to 100.
Over 50s now make up nearly a third of the UK workforce, with the numbers of older workers steadily rising.4
They might be working, in some form or another, until they are octogenarians. So what’s the rush to get started? There is none.
As a CEO, I look at them and wonder whether, in a few years’ time, we are going to have trouble recruiting good young people….
…and what the other implications are for our workforces, when people start work later in life.
In some industries, there already appears to be a hiring crunch. Anecdotal evidence seems to suggest, for example, that a huge proportion of financial advisers are in their 50s or older¹, with a shortage of young people joining the profession.
Of course, industry-specific reasons may contribute to this, but I see it as part of a wider trend.
Meanwhile, at the other end of the spectrum, people are already working much longer than they used to.
Retirement ages are inching upwards.² Many people never really retire at all.
And as an employer, that throws up both challenges - and many opportunities! As my own company has grown and we have hired or brought many more employees under our umbrella, I’ve come to realise that these issues are not theoretical.
They’re real, and they’re happening now. However, only 1 in 5 employers are discussing the ageing workforce strategically.4 So while I know that you are used to hearing from me about pensions, now I would like to broaden the discussion. In this publication, I’m going to consider how the workplace should manage these demographic changes, and look at the impact on employees and employers as the workforce ages.
¹ https://www.moneymarketing.co.uk/issues/12-may-2016/attracting-talent-where-is-the-data-on-young-adviser-numbers/ ² https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/economic-labour-market-status-of-individuals-aged-50-and-over-trends-over-time-october-2018
3 https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/sep/27/rise-in-uk-life-expectancy-slows-significantly-figures-show 4 https://www.ageing-better.org.uk/news/uk-employers-unprepared-ageing-workforce