Why National Older Workers Week could be for you

Join us during National Older Workers Week >>

Are you an older parent? Or just looking to change jobs? If so, National Older Workers Week’s Careers Fair could be for you.

The third National Older Workers Week launches next week with free sessions on latest developments for older workers, best practice and a Careers Fair full of practical careers advice.

The Week, hosted by workingwise.co.uk, has been running since 2021. This year’s sponsors are Phoenix Group, Outcomes First Group and David Lloyd Clubs.

Careers Fair

The Careers Fair includes advice from experts such as Liz Sebag-Montefiore from 10Eighty and Lucy Standing from Brave Starts on career change and CV Guru Emma Alkirwi on applying for jobs. They will also be on hand to answer any questions privately and to offer one to one advice. You can find out more here. 

The Outcomes First Group will also be taking part in a Q & A session about what they have to offer older workers and we will have examples of age-friendly employers to target for those looking for jobs, including  Gym Group, NOW Teach and Virtalent.

At the beginning of the Week, we will put up the next episode of the Mums.Dads.Work podcast which includes an interview with Laura Walker, a learning and development expert, specialising in midlife career reinvention. She will address issues related to how to help people looking to change their career path after a career break or who just want a career change because they are stuck in a rut or need more money.

The Week starts with the unveiling of workingwise.co.uk’s annual survey results covering everything from candidates’ experiences of the recruitment process to the impact of the NHS and the cost of living crises. Many of those who took part are parents or grandparents and they include those in the so-called sandwich generation who are juggling caring responsibilities for children as well as older relatives.

The results will be analysed by Patrick Thomson from Phoenix Insights and Kim Chaplain from the Centre for Ageing Better. Patrick has been working on Midlife MOTs, a review for people in their 40s and 50s to see how they’re doing against financial, wellbeing and career goals, and recently spoke to workingwise.co.uk about Phoenix Insights’ report on this and about Phoenix Group’s own Midlife MOT programme.

Best practice

The insights event will be followed by a session on best practice with age-friendly employers, including Punter Southall Aspire and Saga. Steve Butler from Punter Southall Aspire, a firm that advises HR directors on pensions and benefits for employees, says that when he speaks to HR directors he talks about shaping their benefits to match different age cohorts. He states: “Your younger generation doesn’t necessarily want [very generous] death-in-service life insurance. But your older cohort may value that, and their medical insurance, without getting too much into stereotypes. It’s about looking at the demographic of your workforce and then matching the benefits to that demographic, rather than a standard set of benefits that nobody cares about.” 

Lisa Edgar is Group Chief Customer Officer at Saga and leads an agency that has a strong expertise in helping organisations including Saga understand and fulfil the needs of its older consumer base and employees/target employees so she sees the age issue from both consumer and employer perspectives. She says Saga has many policies that are attractive for older workers, including grandparents leave.

Other speakers are on the session are Michaela Gibson, Head of DEI Transformation & Programme Management at Phoenix Group, David Whitson-Black, Group Head of Talent Development at Azets and Nicky Elford,  Colleague Propositions and Policy at Lloyds Banking Group.

There will also be a Q & A with All Generations Engaged who are launching an age diversity index, described as the UK’s first and only market benchmark specialising in age equity in the workplace. Speakers from Aviva and Phoenix Group joined the webinar to say why they are supporting the index.

Our sister site workingwise.co.uk will be covering all the events and will produce a short e-book bringing together all the findings. For last year’s event it developed a toolkit for employers who are looking to improve how they attract and retain older workers. 

*Find out more and register for events at www.nationalolderworkersweek.co.uk.

Join us during National Older Workers Week >>

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