2.0 The Ageing Workforce.
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.
2.1 The valuable "aged" working class.
According to Davey (2003), there are positive implications of having a more elderly workforce. These advantages relate not only to the experience of the workers but also to savings in expenses (e.g. recruitment and training expenses). The retiring of highly experienced managers and workers is a growing problem in the workforce. The workforce is aging, and qualified replacements are increasingly difficult to recruit and retain, especially in main-line industries (Sheen 2001). The main type of knowledge being lost through retirement is tacit knowledge. This is known to few workers and is not available in procedures and training. This tacit knowledge accounts for up to 80% of an organization's valuable knowledge and its loss has serious consequences for companies' operations and financial performance.
