Australia, along with Sweden, is the second most diverse country in the world after Luxembourg, thus the federal government actively encourages the employment of a diverse workforce. The Business.gov.au website states that ‘diversity in the workplace means having employees from a wide range of backgrounds. This can include having employees of different ages, gender, ethnicity, physical ability, sexual orientation, religious belief, work experience, educational background, and so on’. Furthermore, it is illegal to disadvantage employees and job seekers in any way because of their:

• Race

• Colour

• Gender

• Sexual preference

• Age

• Physical or mental disability

• Marital status

• Family or carer’s responsibilities

• Pregnancy

• Religion

• Political opinion

• National extraction

• Social origin

Focusing on age, because of Australia’s rapidly ageing population, Churchill and colleagues suggest that ‘to minimise the fiscal and economic impact of population ageing, the IGR [Intergenerational Report] asserts that greater labour force participation and increased productivity will be critical’.

However, it does seem that in reality it is extremely difficult for older workers to find employment. Verity Edwards writes about the case of Richard Evans, 62, a former Liberal Party MP and executive director of the Australian Retailers Association, for whom securing full‐time work has been very difficult. Evans claims that his years of experience in retail and business management have been overlooked by many employers, who have gone on to hire younger workers. He says ‘older workers are more reliable, less likely to take sick leave and likelier to stay in the role longer compared with many younger workers who change jobs after a year or two without building experience. Evans has applied for more than 50 jobs and been interviewed for about 20 per cent of those. Out of frustration he is opening a consultancy business’.4 Edwards also writes about international consultant Phil Rutherford, 65, who ‘has spent more than a decade looking for a permanent job. He spends more time consulting on vocational and further training industries overseas than in Australia. He was overqualified for one position he sought but was passed over, and the company asked him to mentor the younger candidate instead. Rutherford was also listed with a prominent jobs agency for more than a decade but lost hope because it was not advocating for him. “It was because of my age,” Rutherford says. “I had a number of experiences like that.” Rutherford stopped putting his age on applications and was regularly short‐listed for interviews, but when he sat before panels he noticed members would almost immediately put down their pens and cross their arms’

This seems like a waste of valuable human resources.

A refreshing step in the right direction, however, is that of the company John Holland, a member of the publicly listed Leighton Group. In a case study from the Employ Outside The Box: Mature Age People guide produced by the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Western Australia, Glen Palin, the Group Managing Director of John Holland, is reported as saying ‘We have created the Flexible Futures Program to encourage and support employees aged 55 years of [sic] over to plan the next phase of their working life. People have always been central to John Holland’s success and today it is more important than ever for us to have the skills, knowledge and experience we need to meet the challenges of growing our business. At the same time we know that more than one‐third of our employees may be considering retirement in the next five to ten years. We want to ensure that those employees have flexible options to allow them to continue working for John Holland while preparing for their eventual retirement . . . John Holland created the Flexible Futures Program to support their employees to plan the next phase of their working life in line with changing needs and goals – while ensuring they support people in the workplace so they are able to pass on their considerable skills and knowledge to other colleagues’.

QUESTIONS

1. What strategies would you suggest the Australian Government implement to make the employment of older people more attractive to businesses?

2. How can the John Holland success story be promoted to other companies so that they too employ older workers?