Professor Peter Buckle, research professor at the Royal College of Art in the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design, was commissioned by the government in December to carry out an evidence review into workplace infrastructure and how changes can enable workers nearing the traditional retirement age to successfully remain at work longer.
Part of the government’s wider Foresight review, Professor Buckle’s research looked at what the UK’s workforce would look like in 2025 and 2040 and provides a steer for organisations so that they can start planning effectively for the future and retain the skills and knowledge of a growing ageing workforce.
“Not only do we have an ageing workforce but we have workers who will now be required to work beyond the age of 65, the traditional pension age because they won’t be receiving their pension,” he told SHP in an exclusive interview to be featured in next month’s issue.
“At the moment, no one quite knows what the upper ceiling will eventually be… It’s an interesting challenge for the workers and for those that employ them.”
Professor Buckle’s Workplace Infrastructure report, which was published on 15 June, identifies a number of significant barriers that ageing workers face across a diverse range of workplaces, business sectors and organisational structures.
One of the headline findings is that the physical and psychological work demands on older workers frequently exacerbate existing conditions or lead to ill health.
“If we find that the impact on forcing people to work past 65 is that a lot of them get ill and sick, then actually we pick up that cost in other ways,” he warned.
“You may cut back on pension but your social care and health costs go through the roof. We have to be smarter than that.”
Professor Buckle added that if work was appropriate and well designed, it could be beneficial to older people’s health.
“We’ve got that trade off,” he said. “The question is how do we make work and workplaces attractive and appropriate to people’s health needs to keep them fit and healthy.”
Looking through the evidence, Professor Buckle found that risk assessment of work for over 65 year olds lacks a sound evidence base and told SHP that one of his recommendations to HSE’s new workplace health expert committee, which met for the first time on 24 June, will be to commission research into this area.
“HSE has done a great job of trying to understand risk to workers but it’s always been done on the working population but now we hardly know anything about people over the age of 65 in work because we’ve not had them before,” he said.
To view the Workplace Infrastructure report and its key findings, visit:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/future-of-ageing-workplace-infrastructure
Also visit: http://www.theageingworkforce.com/
An in-depth interview with Professor Peter Buckle will appear in SHP’s August issue.
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Good article – but doesn’t get to the reason and heart of the matter and the ‘law of unintended consequences”
One of the main reasons the UK and other parts of the world need to plan for an ever ageing workforce is the incompetent, reckless and criminal behaviour of the financial sector backed, encouraged and supported by politicians who clearly take their instructions from large corporations through political capture via donations, lobbyists and real power that comes with obscene wealth.
Quite simply, the theft and fraudulent behaviour of banksters (the UK is the world leader in bank fraud) and large corporations – aided and abetted by ‘captured’ politicians of all parties has left the economy in ruins (despite what mainstream media states), hence austerity for 99.9% and the biggest transfer of wealth to the 0.1% superclass/elites in the history of mankind.
The consequence:- there isn’t enough left to pay pensions for ordinary working people, hence our ageing workforce – getting older is at a faster rate than the enforcement agencies, laws and employers can get ready for the changes.
The psychology of working past age 65 because ‘you want to’ is entirely different to working past 65 because ‘you have to’!
Retiring with dignity, in reasonable health and wealth after 45/50 years working with a decent life expectancy isn’t an unreasonable aspiration.
People working with elevated levels of:- arthritis, breathing problems, obesity, decreased mobility, cancers, vision and hearing impairments, reduction in physical strength, decreasing bone and muscle density, and so on…. needs a concentrated and coordinated effort from all stakeholders and legislators to manage the risk.
But wait….! the legislators will have their hands tied as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) will prevent sovereign governments improving working conditions for our ageing workforce as the tax payer under the Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) system will have to compensate corporations for immediate and future lost profits if any changes to accommodate an ageing workforce cost a corporation money to implement.
‘Unintended’ or ‘intended’ consequences, maybe we need another debate!
In summary:- big corporations and banks with political capture have ‘nefariously acquired’ wealth and assets, gambled them away fraudulently, crashed the world financially and have come back for more in the bail-out (including our pensions), hence there isn’t enough left to allow people to retire. Any other excuse is a lie – fact!
Live with it as it only gets worse from here on in…..
park your political bias at the door VB, trades union appointed safety rep are we?
I’m afraid not SP.
I get my facts from Prof Steve Keen, Prof Andrew Sayer, Prof Michael Hudson and others who have spent a lifetime researching, factually proving and writing about whats happening, maybe you could try that some time. I do find it enlightening to read and learn proveable, tangible and evidence based facts.