Most of us will be familiar with the phrase ‘perception is reality’. I once had an HR boss who almost adopted this phrase as a mantra, particularly when it came to recruitment decision-making. We drove each other bananas as I then struggled with his view, believing it stopped anyone from seeing what really might exist. Only later, in senior leadership roles did I come to better understand my old boss’s perspective.

McKinsey recently released a report advocating the importance of strategic workforce planning (SWP) to business performance in the emerging AI era. They note the future of work will include shifts in demand for occupations, skills upgrades, automation increases, and productivity challenges, further emphasizing the need to proactively manage talent. The ‘strategic’ element of this planning system ensures organisations are not merely reacting to events within their operating environment but anticipating multiple scenarios over a three-to-five-year time horizon.

How easy is it to automatically assume that ageism is solely a reflection of individual belief and attitude? What tends to get lost, particularly when it comes to organisation behaviour, is the contribution established systems and routines can make to the delivery of ageist practices. Often employees wear a ‘bum rap’ for perpetuating ageism merely by using their agency to follow prescribed routines in everyday business activity. We maintain the corporate talent identification/ recruitment routine represents an excellent case in point.

Is it just us, or are others also noticing a widening gulf between the increasing release of research urging us to drop ageist attitudes considering the ageing demographic phenomenon and continuing company behaviour perpetuating ageist business practices in their everyday operations?

This month, continuing our theme of exploring links between age, innovation and productivity growth, we explore how the development of Longevity Innovation Hubs within Australia might be a missing link in the chain in helping promote a longevity mindset within our decision-makers in politics, business and the community.

Improving firm innovation capacity is recognised as one micro-economic reform that can contribute to tackling anticipated productivity and economic growth challenges.

In our final 2024 newsletter we again take a snapshot of the year and reflect the extent opportunities for the older worker and age inclusive workforces have improved over the past twelve months. Unfortunately, in Australia, the evidence suggests little progress has been made in practical terms.

This month, we explore whether the effective operation of an age-inclusive workforce is well served by segregating it by generational descriptors? Certainly, there are business consultants making a good living by deliberately emphasising differences between generations and advising how best to manage them as a collective.

To mark this yea's Ageism Awareness Day, instead of focusing on all the reasons ageism is a blight in our community and specifically the workplace, we will instead celebrate the benefits older workers offer. In doing this, our contribution to tackling ageism is helping overturn many of the negative stereotypical myths attached to the older worker.

Does anyone else find it odd when wisdom is extolled as a positive workplace contributor until it is associated with an older worker and suddenly it becomes a potential obstacle to new knowledge development and organisational adaptability?

What will the labour market look like in the year 2030, the end of this decade? Two analyses grabbed our attention this month, forecasting two very different perspectives. The one thing they agree on though is that workforce dynamics will shift dramatically. With this change just five years away, why aren’t businesses urgently priortising how they will meet it?

We are being myopically led to believe an anticipated ‘silver tsunami’ of older age people is going to negatively overwhelm our future national finances, economy, living standards and quality of life. This is why a recent book by Professor Andrew Scott, ‘The Longevity Imperative: Building a better Society for Healthier, Longer Lives’ is a welcome antidote to the narrative of ageing as a crisis.

Advocates pushing for improving older worker employability opportunities correctly identify the need for HR professionals to revise existing company recruiting practices.

Well, if we ever needed proof of the accelerating population ageing trend within Australia, newspaper reports were happy to provide it. The proportion of people over age of 65 has reached a record high of 17.1% whilst the proportion of people 17 or younger, which in the late 1970’s was 31% has fallen to 21.6%.

We are seeing increasing examples of older workers being embraced in front line roles across hospitality, retail and service industries. However, this positive trend is not translating into the managerial and professional space. Anti-ageism advocates and diversity professionals argue…

Over our Christmas break we had a chance to catch up with two major research studies of last year examining global predictions surrounding the evolution of older workforces and the ongoing business change resistance to the trend.

In our final post for the year, we reflect on whether 2023 has seen encouraging progress towards age-inclusive workforces. Any move in this direction will suggest a loosening of ageism’s grip on business thinking.

September saw the release of a major Government initiative to address our nation’s growing social inequality with a focus paper on the creation of sustainable work for everyone who in the future wants a job.

Often ageism is singularly associated with personal bias. Overcome a personal bias towards ageism so conventional wisdom goes and issues of age -based discrimination become a distant memory. Yet

we know this is not true.

In workplace settings the idea we carry within us a variety of preconditioned biases regarding sex, race and age has given impetus to the growth of the ‘unconscious bias’ training industry.

The training pitch argues that in helping us become aware of our hidden biases, we create more diverse and inclusive workforces that deliver improved business performance.

While a laudable objective, most of this training is proving ineffective.