Case study

Barclays

Barclays is a financial services group engaged in banking and investment management. Like many financial organizations, Barclays suffered in the early 1990’s, when companies were cutting swathes from their workforces. This resulted in losing a number of older employees, a large amount of corporate memory and led to an expectation that people could retire at 50 with a generous package. This was also compounded by the fact that, over a number of years, the organisation reduced the number of external recruits, which resulted in a reduction of younger people entering the financial sector. Barclays has been working hard to redress the balance.

The main challenges Barclays identified are to:

• Attract older staff into the workplace and ensuring HR staff and team leaders are aware of the issues involved
• Review all policies and practices, including recruitment and retirement
• Raise the awareness of age diversity to our staff, both for employees and customers
• Ensure Barclays is seen to value people, regardless of their age

When work commenced in 2002, it was agreed at the very beginning that to make a difference in this area, more than the HR team had to pull together. A working party crossing all business areas was created to ensure the changes in policy and practice could be felt throughout the company. Members of this senior group included HR, Equality & Diversity, Resourcing and Learning, Marketing, Pensions, Senior and middle management representation from all business units. The sheer strength of this group came from the fact that all the business was represented at a very senior level, people who could make things happen and the assurance that central policy would be implemented and put into practice throughout the group.

The work has not ended and Barclays continue to review their policy and practice to seek new ways of supporting and encouraging age diversity.

What we have achieved and continue to build upon now

• Announced that the new right to request flexible work applies to all staff; making it attractive to older workers as well as those with children or other commitments.
• Reviewed all HR policies to ensure no undue mention of age or any age bias.
• Commissioned a piece of research that enabled the group to develop detailed HR plans and policies around what people really want from their organisation to encourage them to work past the age of 50.
• Reviewed the retirement policy – staff have had the option to request to work beyond normal retirement age since 2002.
• Introduced a new pensions scheme called afterwork that allows staff to continue to contribute to their pension as long as they remain in employment, and increase flexibility.
• Reviewed recruitment policy – enabling people over our normal retirement age to apply for roles.
• Focused recruitment for older people in our call centres, which generally have a legacy of being a very young working environment.
• Developed recruitment adverts around the theme ‘No Age Barriers’.
• Raised awareness around age diversity to all recruiters and how to deal with this in everyday situations.
• Raised awareness around age diversity to all training designers and deliverers and how to deal with this in everyday situations.
• Raised awareness through all staff via a number of training interventions, including age diversity in customers training.
• Analysed the Employee Opinion Survey to identify what factors are an issue for people of different ages.
• Ensured all policies such as career breaks are open to all staff, all ages.
• All new policies are checked to ensure no age bias is present.
• Developed pages within the Barclays intranet site to promote and raise awareness of age diversity.

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