Half The Talent, Half The Market. Ignore At Your Peril.

In this week’s budget, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is trying to encourage the 50+ to return to work. He has removed some key financial obstacles, like dramatically raising the country’s lifetime pension contribution cap and the annual tax free contributions allowances. It’s part of the country’s bid to get over half a million older workers back into the UK’s labour force. Almost half the UK’s 53 million adults are over 50 and one survey suggests a majority of them wants to work past age 65.

Now, companies are going to have to meet the government halfway – by actually employing them. This requires a big shift in leadership, culture and systems. A growing number of firms are emerging to try help them adapt. 55Redefined is one of them.

It seems obvious. Talent strapped companies are struggling to find and retain skilled employees. A plentiful older talent pool that wants to work is finding it hard to get a job. Employers are not yet adapting to demographic shifts and are stuck in outdated notions of what talent looks like. Nor are many yet exploring the growth potential of better responding to the needs and preferences of ageing customer segments. Those who do, will find they have a competitive edge on the changes afoot.

“By 2050,” says 55Redefined Founder and CEO Lyndsey Simpson (who is 44), “the working age (16-64) population will have shrunk by between 21-28% across all Western countries creating a shortfall of over 50m skilled, university educated workers. The over-60 population is conversely set to grow by over 40% in the same period.” A serial entrepreneur with a background in financial services, Lyndsey Simpson’s goal with her 8^th company is simple: to get individual goals and corporate practices aligned around this massive demographic shift. The company’s brand video is a vibrant call to arms to redefine assumptions around age.

Over two decades ago, management thinker Peter Drucker predicted that workforces would divide into two segments – the over and under-50s. They would, he suggested, have very different needs, motivations and interests. While his prediction is close to becoming reality, few companies have yet started to adapt. Let alone recognising that the older are fast becoming a majority of consumers and purchasing decision-makers. 55Redefined is taking three intelligently-structured swipes at the challenge, through its three areas of focus:

• Jobs Redefined – the original idea was to create a jobs platform specifically geared to the 50+ and the employers interested in them.
• Life Redefined – then emerged a popular membership platform for “today’s vibrant, thrill-seeking, healthy, young-minded, entrepreneurial, can-do, future-focused, on-the-pulse, passionate, fun-loving generation who just happen to be 50 or over.” With as role models, cool video interviews with Richard Branson who still thinks he’s in his 20s, except when he looks in the mirror.
• Work Redefined – more recently added, a consulting and accreditation service for companies who want to proactively embrace the demographic shift underway.

Launched in the UK in 2021, it is set to expand to the US this year. After its first full year of activity, it boasts some significant success metrics: Over 100,000 followers on Facebook, 50 corporate customers and over half a million page views of its Life/Redefined platform. It has raised £1.4m to date and is now seeking venture funds.

Its research shows that the disconnect the company is trying to bridge is glaring.

The Pioneers: Making Generational Balance a Business Priority

By launching an ‘age inclusive employer accreditation’ program, 55Redefined is offering companies a useful form of differentiation.

‘Age accreditation’ invites companies to sign up to a charter of commitments supporting 50+ workers. This includes educating employees about age-conscious inclusion, reducing bias among people leaders, HR and anyone involved in hiring. Age Inclusive employers play a role in changing attitudes and challenging age discrimination. They shift behaviours and cultures in their own businesses, networks and communities, and so reap the benefits of attracting and retaining generationally balanced talent.

So far, 12 UK companies have gone through 55/Redefined’s accreditation process: Rethink, Rank, ITV, HL, Slater & Gordon, Motorpoint, Boots, Dentsu, the Workshop, Together Money, Bank of Ireland and Capgemini. Here is what some of them are saying about why they are signing on to be visible leaders in integrating age as a business priority.

• Hargreaves Lansdown: Investment platform Hargreaves Lansdown is the first FTSE 100 firm to be accredited. “The Age Inclusive employer accreditation helps to evidence our commitment to develop a diverse and inclusive culture where colleagues are engaged, empowered, work together and live our values,” says HL’s head of recruitment and onboarding Abi Taylor.
• BOOTS: The UK’s largest pharmacy chain recognises the generational balance of its current workforce. Over a quarter of employees are already over age 50 (27%). “With over 2,200 stores across the UK, recruiting and retaining a diverse mix of team members who are representative of the diverse communities we serve, enables us to have access to a broader range of ideas and perspectives so we can better understand and respond to the unique challenges and needs of our customers and team members,” explains, Head of Recruitment Donna Hodgins. “With an ageing population in the UK, we also recognise that the labour market is changing too, and we need to adapt to give everyone access to equal opportunity of employment and to attract and retain the best talent.”
• Denstu UK: The notoriously youth-obsessed advertising industry is largely staffed with the young, even though they often are developing campaigns to sell to the older. An industry-wide All In Census revealed that the UK’s ad industry skews significantly younger than the general population. And only employs 5% aged over 55. Denstu UK decided to buck the trend and tackle ageism in both its advertising and employment practices. “Prioritising, attracting and retaining people at a time when they typically choose to take their careers in a different direction,” says Anne Sewell, Denstu’s Chief People Officer, “is not only the right thing to do but it also makes sound business sense to hold on to this community’s vast talent, knowledge and experience.”

55Redefined’s 5 Steps to Age Inclusion

How to adapt to the generational balance of your current workforce, and better reflect and respond to the needs of ageing customer demographics? Here are their five suggestions:

1. Be bias active – Understand the level of age bias that exists in your organisation. Deliver training and insight, take action to address misplaced stereotypes and recognise the unintended consequences of over-focusing on other diversity areas.
2. Flex appeal– Encourage people to stay longer in the workforce by creating flexible roles that appeal to the over-55 talent pool. From permanent roles at three or four days per week, to rehiring retired professionals for periods of the year on flexible contracts.
3. The will to skill – Invest in technical training and reskilling of this age group – for both current and new employees. Create schemes targeting this age group or hiring cohorts of over-55s for in-demand roles that require technical or industry training.
4. Change tack – Stop hiring solely on previous experience and technical fit. Focus instead on soft skills, behaviour, motivation, and cultural fit criteria. Support hiring managers to make this transition by creating new ways of recruiting and assessing talent.
5. Engage the age – Get to know your existing over-55 workforce and be proactive in asking them what they want and how best you can support them to remain engaged in work for longer.

Redefining Up or Out Cultures

The bigger issue of generational balance in business will be a larger redrawing of what 60-year careers look like – and how they are managed. Today’s definition of success, an up-or-out vertical progression that drops off a cliff-edge at a pre-defined age, will take time to unlearn and undo. The consequences are complex, from pension calculations to recruitment messaging and development opportunities.

Lyndsey Simpson was surprised to find that most over-55s she interviewed felt they needed to change company if they wanted to change roles. People felt that the competitive, upward, ambitious nature of employment made someone who wants to take a less demanding role face suspicion – or disdain. Rather than recognising that employee motivations change, and financial and personal drivers may be very different after 50, it is currently unacceptable in most corporate cultures for someone to be seen to be taking their foot off the pedal. Dropping hours or moving downward into a less senior position to focus on areas they enjoy is rare and still incomprehensible.

“We believe that if you don’t have an age strategy, you don’t have a growth strategy,” says Simpson. “So we work with companies to understand the impact of an ageing population through three lenses – Colleague, Customer and Company.” It is not a diversity issue or one for HR to carry, she insists. It is for the C-suite to understand and evaluate the impact that the mega trend of ageing populations presents to their business.

Until we better understand and integrate the realities and motivations of half the market and half the talent, we’ll be limping economically on one leg. But leading companies are starting to show the way. Who’s next?