Age Against the Machine: Action Pledges for an Age-Inclusive Workforce

Earlier this summer, Brave Starts invited 120 leaders to Age Against the Machine, an event at the House of Lords to address the realities of an ageing workforce. They weren’t there just to discuss the issues and gaze at their navels: the day involved them making individual commitments to action.

While it’s not easy to change government policy, it is easy for everyone to do one thing differently. Let’s face it, government policy quite often plays catch-up when enough people say ‘this is wrong’.

From Pledges to Action: Key Themes

The pledges made at the June event have now been word-crunched into themes. When combined, the individual pledges create a pathway back into work for older people, backing it up with data and building inclusive, age-friendly cultures from the inside out.

The most frequently cited pledges alluded to examining and rethinking their approach to recruitment. Examples include exploring alternatives to CV-based applications; reviewing applicant tracking systems and jobs boards for bias and addressing recruitment barriers for older applicants.

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At Brave Starts we’ve argued for a long time that, without accurate measurement, no one can know the scale of the problem. So the fact that the second most common set of pledges fell into the data and measurement category is a particular joy. Examples here include collecting and analysing age-related workforce data; reviewing NI contributions and cost/benefit impacts, and auditing recruitment or retention patterns by age.

Next were pledges that focused on actions in the area of providing support for returners and older workers. Examples include designing or reviving returner programmes; creating mid life reskilling programmes, midlife apprenticeship schemes or similar.  

Then followed two clusters which were related. One was looking at further and deeper exploration of the issues. The event was attended by research organisations and think tanks – who are now exploring how age plays a role in the causes they are examining. The other was focused more on creating more forums for dialogue and discussion to bring more expertise to the table. Examples include: continuing conversations with peers and table groups; partnering for shared action, and creating networks or communities of practice.

There were several mentions of the idea to set up an internal employee network focused on age. The idea being this internal group can be the test bed for ideas, to learn from and provide a forum for employees to raise issues.

The next cluster of pledges revolve around internal advocacy – making sure the c-suite is on board and understands the business case for age inclusion, and building support within HR or strategy functions.

There were also pledges in the communications and story telling field. Some link to education – sharing stories of older workers is designed to raise awareness, but there were also pledges to use media to challenge stereotypes, and speaking or publishing articles on ageing and work.

AI has a part to play too. Pledges include using AI for more inclusive recruitment; exploring tech-based community or learning platforms, and empowering older workers through digital tools.

Lastly, there were a few mentions on the idea of setting up a mentoring scheme, to re-examine career pathways so the focus is not just ‘upwards’ but also lateral – or downward, and a mention on age awareness training for managers.

We’re looking forward to hearing how these pledges work out – obviously, we’ll be following up everything and we’ll let you know.

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