Tuesday, December 14, 2004

Moving the Finnish Line at Work

The BBC recently reported on a story from Finland:

Finland was heading for a severe labour shortage until the advent of a new concept called "work ability", a complex holistic concept that the Finnish government has been promoting since 1998 to keep older people in the workplace and capture their knowledge and experience.

Since it was introduced, the employment rate of Finns aged 55-64 has jumped more than 13 per cent compared to the EU average rise of 5.1 per cent.

And as BBC's online explains, the scheme is based around an evidence-based approach that aims to convince employers to tailor their work to individuals as they age - and also to improve those individuals' health and skills or knowledge needed for the job.

Pete's Points

Since the Australian government has insisted that it too is interested in keeping older people at work - perhaps it is time for the bureaucrats who are supposed to make this happen to take a look at examples of where it is being done successfully and then consider how to make it happen here.

My current experience is still one which sees most employers giving opportunities to younger people, while older workers are left to languish, told they have no future in the organisation and often prevented from directly competing with younger staff.

This is age discrimination at it's worst.

No comments: