Vanessa Beck University of Leicester ESRC Rethinking Retirement - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Vanessa Beck University of Leicester ESRC Rethinking Retirement Seminar Series Manchester, 4 November 2011

 Intro: focus of the public discussion  The research undertaken  Descriptive statistics  Employers’ responses to the recession  Implications of retirement age changes for the management of the workforce  Conclusions

Source: www.personneltoday.com

 Short phase of ‘media hype’ (2009 / early 2010) replaced by concern over youth unemployment  Differences to previous recessions (Vaitilingham, 2009): ◦ Changes to early retirement and disability benefits ◦ Current workforce and employers’ memory of previous recession

10.0 12.0 14.0 0.0 2.0 4.0 6.0 8.0 January 1992 July 1992 January 1993 July 1993 January 1994 July 1994 Source: nomisweb.co.uk Proportion of resident population aged 16-64 estimates Unemployment: claimant count rate (Jan ‘92 – Jul ‘11) January 1995 July 1995 January 1996 July 1996 January 1997 July 1997 January 1998 July 1998 January 1999 July 1999 Male rate January 2000 July 2000 January 2001 July 2001 January 2002 Female rate July 2002 January 2003 July 2003 January 2004 July 2004 January 2005 Total rate July 2005 January 2006 July 2006 January 2007 July 2007 January 2008 July 2008 January 2009 July 2009 January 2010 July 2010 January 2011 July 2011

 Research since 2008  Sectors: construction, engineering, health, logistics, retail  2008 Study for the LSC: 32 semi- structured interviews (of which 19 employers)  2010/11 re-interviewing of 7 employers (no logistics)  LFS Quarterly Survey analysis from 1 st quarter 2007 to 1 st quarter 2011

16-24yrs 25-49yrs 50-64yrs 65-74yrs 75+yrs 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 1.Q 07 2.Q 07 3.Q 07 4.Q 07 1.Q 08 2.Q 08 3.Q 08 4.Q 08 1.Q 09 2.Q 09 3.Q 09 4.Q 09 1.Q 10 2.Q 10 3.Q 10 4.Q 10 1.Q 11 ageband * Economic activity (reported) Crosstabulation: in employment response (% within ageband)

16-24yrs 25-49yrs 50-64yrs 65-74yrs 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 1.Q 07 2.Q 07 3.Q 07 4.Q 07 1.Q 08 2.Q 08 3.Q 08 4.Q 08 1.Q 09 2.Q 09 3.Q 09 4.Q 09 1.Q 10 2.Q 10 3.Q 10 4.Q 10 1.Q 11 ageband * Economic activity (reported) Crosstabulation: ILO unemployed response (% within ageband)

 …we’ve got something called a Mars Scheme in health at the moment. Which is a mutually acceptable resignation scheme, so to pre-empt redundancies. But for people that think they’re going to leave, it’s half what you would get through say a redundancy package. But if you were somewhere between, I don’t know, particularly perhaps if you were between 50/65, it might be an attractive proposition. (Health)  …our instructions from above were to put everybody on notice and we’ll rescind as and when we know what’s happening. So the skills didn’t come into it at all. To be realistic it was a case of longer service. […] And so we’d be left with the people with the longer service who by default are the older people. (Construction)

16-24yrs 25-49yrs 50-64yrs 65-74yrs 75+yrs 120 100 80 60 40 20 0 1.Q 07 2.Q 07 3.Q 07 4.Q 07 1.Q 08 2.Q 08 3.Q 08 4.Q 08 1.Q 09 2.Q 09 3.Q 09 4.Q 09 1.Q 10 2.Q 10 3.Q 10 4.Q 10 1.Q 11 ageband * Economic activity (reported) Crosstabulation: Inactive response (% within ageband)

 ‘Default’ based on previous recessions  DRA still available at time of interviews  So although a lot of people have been encouraged to work longer, we’re actually saying right now we need to… if you hit 60 or 65 or depending on, some nursing professions for example can finish a bit earlier, then that has been done where appropriate. So there’s been a fully managed process to get… if you like to minimise potential redundancies and to get people… make the most of natural attrition I guess. (Health)

 Flexibility and restructuring  E.g. reduced hours, concession bargaining or recession sabbaticals  [W]e have kept our head count flat […] but when we’ve got a busy time and fortunately we have a busy time right now, we’re getting a lot of orders out for China right now, for the end of the year and people are having to literally move from department to department to department, follow a job through and get it out the door. So the multi-skilling, the multi-tasking and people able to do many things is benefitting us very much just right now . (Engineering)

 Importance of flexible working and retirement  Retail reports increase of older workers as a result  … can come back to work on light duties but we don’t have any light duties on a building site. You can’t have a man sweeping out the canteen all day. We can’t afford to do that, the business would just go under. (Construction)  Potential for ‘un-retirement’ (Mastas, 2010)

 I suppose the danger is… the principle danger for the retirement age is the removal of the ability of the employer to actually demand that the guy retires, isn’t it? (Retail)

 Performance management as recommended strategy ◦ “[P]erformance discussions provide the opportunity for that discussion [about retirement] to naturally arise” (DWP, 2011a: 13).  Alternatives in frank discussions or protected conversations  Formal procedures to trigger resignation or safeguard against unfair dismissal claims (Goodman et al. , 1998)

I think if someone’s not performing the task to the appropriate level, we would have a conversation about why that might be happening. And it’s usually one of three reasons. It could be they’ve not been trained properly. It could be that they do have some sort of physical issue or mental issue that’s preventing from completing the task as we would like them to. So, for an older worker that could be a bad back or they’re just a bit slower as they, you know, particularly when you get to the people in their 60s or 65 plus. It could be a misconduct issue. Actually they do know how to do it, they just can’t be bothered. So, we would explore which of those. If it was the middle one and actually yes there was something around their capability from a physical point of view for example, then we would look at what reasonable adjustments we could make to enable them to perform to an acceptable level in our organisation. If we couldn’t, then yes they might have to go down the performance management route and they might have to exit the business. (Retail)

 Equality vs. age related issues, i.e. even systematic appraisal techniques are not neutral  Content of discussions / HR tools: capability reviews, performance management, disciplinary procedures  Does retirement fit in?

 Labour market (so far) characterised by continuity rather than change  General avoidance of redundancy  Older workers position in the LM may be undermined by other means  Underlying trend for deregulation not a solution

 DWP (2011a), “Workforce management without a fixed retirement age”, Age Positive (DWP), January 2011.  Goodman, J., Earnshaw, J., Marchington, M. and Harrison, R. (1998), “Unfair dismissal cases, disciplinary procedures, recruitment methods and management style: case studies from three industrial sectors”, Employee Relations , 20(6): 536-550.  Maestas, N. (2010) Back to work: Expectations and Realizations of Work after Retirement , Journal of Human Resources , 45(3): 718-748.  Vaitilingam, R. (2009) Recession Britain, Findings from economic and social research, Economic and Social Research Council, Swindon.