“Make the workplace age-friendly for older workers”: MOS Halimah Yaacob

In summary, to make our workplace more older worker friendly we need to do the following :-

1. Effective legislation supported by enlightened practices

The Re-employment law will come into effect in January 2012. With this law, every employer will be required to offer re-employment opportunities to their older workers who have reached the age of 62 years. The law is a strong starting point giving older workers the right to work beyond the current retirement age of 62 years. Without this law, it is entirely up to the discretion of employers whether or not to continue to provide employment to those beyond the age of 62 years. The enlightened ones had already done so, the less enlightened ones have been less willing. But we need to apply not just the letter of the law, but what is equally important is the spirit and the intent of the law, as we all know that the law is but an enabler and we need to do much more than that to ensure that our older workers remain employed. So employers need to put in place policies and practices to support the employment of older workers.

2. Job Redesign

One key area would be job redesign. Jobs with a higher knowledge or skill content may require little adjustment, but those with a higher level of physical work, will need to be redesigned if we want to keep our older workers employed. This is where leveraging on technology will be necessary and there are examples where this has been done but which will require planning and preparation. And employers can take advantage of the ADVANTAGE scheme in order to mechanize, automate or redesign their jobs to suit the needs of older workers. There are many examples, such as the hospitals which had introduced new processes and technology to make it possible for their staff to minimize the physical work needed to move their patients from the bed to the wheelchair, for instance. Or even in the manufacturing sector where intricate scope work is needed, magnifying glasses are used to help the workers perform such work to reduce the strain on the eyes.

Job redesign is an important element because even as we ask the older workers to be prepared for change including going for training and skills upgrading, if we do not make the jobs older worker friendly, it will have an impact on their employability. It will also mean that increasingly more and more jobs will be out of reach of older workers, and they will find themselves confined to a narrow range of jobs that do not do justice to their capabilities or experience, and Singapore will suffer as a result. Employers may also have to think of providing more flexible work options to our older workers, as some may prefer to work shorter hours or part time which is more aligned to their needs at that stage in their life. This is not necessarily a bad thing either from the organisation's point of view, as in some sectors you may need more workers at a certain time of the day and less at other times. The key is flexibility by giving more options for the benefit of both the organisation and the older workers.

3. Strong community and consumer support

But even as companies prepare their workplaces to help better integrate older workers, older workers also need strong community and consumer support for them to do their work. If consumers expect to be served by young, good looking staff, businesses will respond by only employing the young. But if consumers are age blind but instead demand a high level of service, companies will instead focus on training and developing their workers regardless of age. Consumers hold a lot of power and can influence and encourage the employment of more older workers. So, the next time that you are served well by an older worker make an effort to compliment the management for their good service delivered through the older worker, and you would have done your part.

4. Intergenerational Workplace Relation

Companies can also do more to prepare co-workers for an aging workforce, to avoid inter generational conflicts or tension which can be an obstacle to integration of older workers, and even discriminatory practices in the employment of older workers. Much of these tensions can be addressed by having open conversations at work involving the role and contributions of workers of all age groups, as well as ensuring that work teams or project teams that are formed include people of all age groups. In this way, there is cross learning and cross sharing of experiences, set clear expectations and minimize conflicts, helping to enhance productivity.

5. Early Preparation

The Tripartite Guidelines on the Re-employment of Older Workers provide useful and relevant pointers and time lines for the implementation of the re-employment law. It provides a good basis and reference guide for companies to prepare their workforce and companies that have not done so, are well advised to do so quickly as they only have three months left before the law kicks in. Help is readily available from MOM, SNEF and NTUC and should be tapped quickly. In this regard, it is heartening to note that the public sector as a whole has taken the lead and implemented their re-employment policies in July this year, ahead of the law. As the largest employer, the public sector’s policies and practices would certainly have an impact on the private sector, so their early adoption is a good development.