Companies across the UK are not monitoring the age demographic of their workforce and are potentially putting the wellbeing of their older employees at risk, according to esearch conducted by business insurance specialists QBE.
The research reveals that 60 percent of Senior HR decision makers did not know how many of their employees were over the state pension age. With this fewer than one in four were monitoring how their employee age demographic was going to change over the next 10-20 years. Over half (62 percent) of employers did not conduct age-relevant health and safety or risk management audits and 68 percent did not monitor the cause and/or rate of absence among older workers.
Rosie Hewitt, Rehabilitation Manager at QBE commented:
“This lack of awareness gives grounds for concern. From an employee health and wellbeing perspective, it could signal that Britain’s employers do not have the policies and support services in place that reflect the needs of all their workers. This exposes older employees to work-related injury or illness and companies to the financial consequences of employee absence”
The survey also addressed that among senior HR decision makers, more than half admitted that they did not know how many of their employees were at state pension age nor the number of employees that planned to continue working past this age.
In regards to the support offered to older workforces, over one in two respondents did not conduct specific health and safety or risk management audits. More than two thirds (72%) admitted to not assessing the suitability of existing occupational health and rehabilitation programmes within the company and 74 percent were not reviewing flexible working policies.
Amie Filcher is an editorial assistant at HRreview.
