Employers should be transparent about the impact of age on their workforces, according to an opinion piece in People Management. They “should routinely publish data showing who gets hired and promoted and receives pay increases, and who bears the burden of restructuring, broken down by age band”, argues Annie Coleman. “Gender and ethnicity have reporting frameworks, but age is different; it is the only characteristic affecting us all, regardless of race, gender or socioeconomic background, yet it remains almost invisible in our workforce data.” Without it they are making workforce decisions in the dark. “Where do careers stall? Who is being quietly sidelined in their fifties because of assumptions about ambition and trajectory? Age band reporting makes those questions impossible to avoid.” She notes that when experienced people leave their jobs in waves, driven by default pension ages and a lack of alternatives, organisations cast aside knowledge and accumulated judgement that induction programmes cannot replicate. And with over-50s controlling the lion’s share of UK household wealth, there is a commercial case for retaining and recruiting then that boards cannot ignore.
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