Tony Williams, career coach and member of Age Diversity Forum, opened the sessions.
He said he was involved in research involving a representative sample size of managers and recruiters to assess their attitudes towards employees over the age of 50.
It found that “ageism is very much alive” and Williams said this “was quite astonishing”.
Williams said the UK faced a “significant challenge” regarding its attitude to age, as its population was ageing and while this is expected to level out by the early 2050s, the country would “go through decades where there are going to be more older people and fewer younger people”.
He questioned whether that was sustainable for UK businesses based on how they approached older employees.
Williams said the reasons behind assumptions held by recruitment managers were unknown as more research needed to be done, but he deduced it could be down to the belief that older people were unreliable, came with health issues, and were more costly. He said these were myths and older workers brought an “immense amount of value” to the workplace.
He said the focus should not be on age but on ability, adding that the consequences of excluding older workers were “bad news” for UK businesses.
Williams said it was time to “retire the concept retirement” and think about employees in terms of “stage not age”.
He also said everyone had different needs and wants, meaning some people would prefer or even need to work for longer.
“We have choices about what stage we want to be at,” Williams added.
This was followed by a presentation from Averil Leimon, author and leadership psychologist, who said there was a “leadership cliff” of people retiring out of work who were not being replaced.
“Talent is falling off and we’re not refilling it unless we look at a new way of working. And another factor is sometimes we fill [the gap] with people we didn’t want to hire the first time around,” she added.
Leimon said when it came to women employees, around 50 per cent of talent was lost every five years because some workplaces made it hard for women to stay and they ended up leaving after being unable to change company culture.
“Age is crueller to women, men just get more distinguished,” She added. Leimon said it was also a problem that people who left work were often not encouraged to return.
Embracing age
Sonya Matharu, senior mortgage adviser at The Mortgage Mum, and Charles Morley, director of mortgage distribution at Metro Bank, then sat down for a fireside chat to discuss their experiences with ageism during their careers.
Morley said despite meeting a few days ago and being of different genders, ages and ethnicities, he and Matharu “found a common ground”.
He said in their respective careers they had both experienced some form of ageism.
Matharu said during her career, she had been judged for being younger. She became a self-employed broker aged 23 and asked someone “older and wiser” for help on how to further her business. Matharu was told that her gender, Asian background and age were the three things going against her, suggesting the latter meant she would have to work harder as people would not want to take mortgage advice from someone who seemed to have little life experience.
“It was never something I considered would be an issue and at the time it became an issue and really affected my confidence,” she added.
This led to her shying away from disclosing her age, and Matharu said it was only recently that she started to embrace it and see it as a positive.
Morley said twice in his career, the only feedback he had been given following unsuccessful job interviews was that he was too young.
He said he was lucky to have supportive managers and at 31 was made head of sales at Kensington Mortgages and then sales director at 34.
He said his age-diverse workforce improved decision making and made the company more productive.
Morley said the employees’ skills complemented each other as the younger staff tended to be “better with tech and innovation” while the older employees typically had “more solid interpersonal skills”. He said bringing these things together made for a richer working environment.
“This [mix] has brought a real richness to decision making,” Morley added.
When asked what someone should do if they felt disadvantaged in the sector, Matharu said the best advice she had for anyone was to not give up.
She said she came close to leaving the profession until she took a job at the Mortgage Mum and said founder Sarah Tucker “saw what I once saw in myself”.
“She worked really closely with me to pull it back out of me again… for that, I’m so grateful,” Matharu added.
Delegates then took part in group discussions where they talked about succession planning and ways to retain talent.
People suggested providing continuous learning, encouraging flexible working and having return to work programmes.
The employee experience
Moderating a panel discussion at the executive event, Leimon asked for practical examples for developing a people strategy at work.
Will Lloyd-Hayward, managing director of Sirius Finance, said he was a product of a company investing “time and money” into its people rather than prioritising sales targets.
He said there were also a number of programs to help people attain their professional development plan, adding: “15 per cent of the staff that we have in our business have evolved from work experience, work internships and courses.”
Leimon said this sounded like a specific, tailored approach and Hayward said this was the case as the firm did not apply a broad approach.
“It’s a tailored strategy… that’s a broader point about diversity… you have to think of where you are and what you’re trying to achieve,” Lloyd-Hayward added.
Tony Williams said when he looked back, he realised just how much had been invested in his previous job both “formally and informally”.
He commended his former employer Barclays for being “really good” at this as some employees did not have these things. Williams said recent corporate conversations had focused on the customer experience, but the corporate world was now shifting into a time where the employee experience was getting attention.
“We need to start thinking about and consciously designing our employee experience to make sure people are on the right track and getting the right development,” he added.
Atlyn Forde, chair of the diversity and inclusion committee and senior manager data insights at Pepper Money, said internal programmes were good at creating a sense of belonging and added that one way of helping this along was establishing a community so colleagues could speak about their lived experiences.
“Talking about that openly helps to raise awareness,” she said. She said psychological safety was also important as it allowed people to share their views.
Jeffrey Krampah-Williams, national key account manager at Santander, said companies should look at areas that the company or its employees might be lacking.
When it came to the development of employees, Krampah-Williams said it was helpful to look at the talent of an employee rather than their tenure.
“When you are in your career, you don’t necessarily have those contacts… the practical thing to do is find someone where you do recognise that talent and advocate for them,” he added.
Matharu said culture also mattered and regarding age, firms needed to be aware of whether older staff “felt redundant and [as id they were] waiting around for retirement” or if younger employees had a sense of being “inadequate and trying to measure up to the older generation”.
She said good leadership brought a culture of mutual respect.
Forde said there was a lot of “fear” when it came to diversity and inclusion and sometimes those who wanted to make changes ended up shutting people who were further behind on the journey down.
“If people make a mistake, use it as a learning experience,” she added. Forde said this resulted in people resisting and trying to slow down diversity and inclusion efforts.
Leimon said silencing people meant their true views remained hidden and could not be addressed or challenged.
Matharu agreed and said there needed to be room for error as people should not be allowed to voice their opinions.
