The ageing workforce in HRM

1.0 The cause of the ageing workforce

There have been many demographic shifts effecting populations since the 1940’s which have impacted largely on the labour market. The ‘baby boom’ population which occurred between 1946 and 1964 has created significant changes affecting the construction of schools, the birth of new communities and the creation of new jobs and industries (Mosner 2004). As the boomers developed as a generation, educational facilities expanded and enrolments soared, creating a highly educated wo

The issue of ageing in the workforce has different impacts from a human resource perspective. According to Burtless (2003) One of the biggest problems, is the expense created by the large number of pensions and financial aids organisations need to pay as the baby boom population gradually leaves the workforce. Another issue is the fact that aged employees have a degree of wisdom and can be highly valued by an organisation. They have more experience in the everyday activities of a business and they are difficult to replace. The third issue is that the average age in the workforce is increasing and this has some negative implications. For example aged employees may have difficulties adapting to technological changes and may not be able to cope with multi-task, high stress job requirements, simply due to mental ageing (WFD 2001). According to Mosner (2004), as people live longer, they are likely to experience age-related changes. These changes may effect areas such as their vision, hearing and dexterity, which can affect their capacity to use and interact with computing devices and environments.

According to Remery et al. (2001), as the baby boomer population gradually leave the working force, there are going to be large shortages. To reduce this problem, the main workforce planning includes such things as analysing the demographics of the workforce; reviewing retirement projections and turnover statistics; and developing strategies to meet future needs. The four phases of workforce planning include: 1) setting a strategic direction; 2) workforce analysis (i.e., analysis of supply/demand projections and analysis of gaps); 3) implementation of the workforce plan; 4) Monitoring, evaluation, and revision (Malatest 2003).

2.1 The valuable ‘aged’ working class

The aging workforce population can impact on the economy in a number of ways (Eurofound 1998). These include; reduced public savings because of the call on publi

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