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.

We are beginning to witness an increasing interest in the popular book industry of the social impacts of the global ageing population trend. Yet, this apparent discovery of a new global issue requiring some form of government and business response is misleading. The issue of population ageing has been well-known for over thirty years and largely ignored by governments of all persuasions.

Old men have sure being occupying media headlines over recent months.

Joe Biden seeking re-election as US President at age 82; Trump in Court at 78; Rupert Murdoch continuing to deeply influence Fox News at age 92; 80-year-old Harrison Ford going around again as Indiana Jones and now Robert DeNiro a father at 79. Not to forget Charles becoming King at the relatively young age of 74! Who thought a career as a gerontologist could suddenly make you a media celebrity and ‘life of the party’!

Have you ever stopped to think that an organisation’s focus on ‘busyness’ is a clever way to distract us from questioning the way it might behave? The answer is ‘probably not’ as you don’t have a moment to take a breath!

You, like us, might remember the original ‘Perfect Match’ TV show now getting an updated rerun on Netflix. In the search for romance, an individual participant would ask a series of questions to three other hidden participants…