The right approach to training can help companies get the best out of an ageing workforce

As several participants in Cedefop’s international seminar, learning later in life: uncovering the potential of investing in an ageing workforce (Brussels 21-22 September) stressed, prevailing attitudes about training for ageing workers - particularly employer attitudes - need to change.
Human resource departments tend to see training as a ‘retention strategy’ for older workers rather than as a means to improve skills, productivity and job satisfaction. This approach is unlikely to lead to a better use of an ageing workforce.
Companies need to develop a new ‘demographic literacy’:
- to understand that demographic change is imminent;
- analyse their own company’s age structure; and
- ensure that their efficiency, productivity and capacity for innovation are not affected by the rise of the average working age.
To do this successfully, they should factor age into all aspects of human resource management. Firms that have analysed their age structure are already adopting age-friendly HR practices.
Above all companies should not underestimate the value of training to their companies. Employers consider training less important than product development, marketing and work organisation – yet all of these depend on well-trained, creative employees of all ages.
Employer representatives argued that small and medium companies face difficulties in providing training, as older workers form a greater proportion of their workforce than in larger companies Such SMEs need a strategy to identify training needs, implement training, and evaluate its results.
Older workers do have specific requirements for training. They want their own experience and knowledge to be taken seriously, and to be integrated into the learning experience. But they enjoy being part of an intergenerational learning environment. Only ICT training, they feel, may require classes separated by age.
Training programmes for entrepreneurship also tend to focus too narrowly on young people. As seminar participants heard, Europe lags behind Latin America in entrepreneurship training for this age group. In fact, ‘grey’ entrepreneurs, with their greater human and social capital, tend to be more successful.
The seminar was organised in cooperation with the European Commission in the context of 2012, European Year of Active Ageing.