Case study

Housing Solutions Group

Age Positive Champion

We are a Housing Association operating in Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Hampshire and Oxfordshire. We have a wide age range of employees - the youngest is 17 and the oldest is 73.

We focus on people’s experience and skills rather than their age and background, and manage to retain a wealth of experience through our employees who are over normal retirement age.

John Petitt, Group Chief Executive

OUR AGE POSITIVE GOOD PRACTICE:

Recruitment

When recruiting we do not specify age limits or restrictions, we recruit who we believe is best for the job.

The personal details of an applicant are detached from the application form and are not given to the recruiting panel.

Applications are short-listed against the competence criteria and interview questions are agreed beforehand.

This means that that recruitment decisions are made objectively.

Over the last three years we have recruited people who happen to be close to the usual retirement age. From our point of view, the individual may continue to work for us for a further 5-10 years so we don’t see it as any sort of barrier to their effective contribution to the company.

Older employees

Any employee who wishes to work beyond our usual retirement age of 65 years is able to; retirement is not a must at 65 if the individual feels able and is competent to continue. We currently have six employees who are over retirement age and continue to contribute effectively.

Where possible we offer alternative employment to those who still feel able to work but may find a role too physical as they get older.

For example, an older employee had an Estate Warden role but because of the amount of lifting, carrying and driving they felt unable to continue so an alternative less physical job was offered to retain their knowledge and skill.

When one of our older Gas Fitters found it difficult to carry out some parts of his job that involved kneeling, we offered him an office based role that still maintained contact with his fellow tradesmen by using his skills and experience in Gas Inspections.

When people are approaching retirement, we can arrange for them to ‘wind-down’ and reduce their hours in the year before retirement if they wish to, in order to get used to spending time away from work.

Younger employees

On our application form we request information on transferable skills and holiday work experience thus encouraging younger people with less work experience. For example, if the person had organised social events or done community or voluntary work - this can all be relevant.

We realised that we had very few young employees or school leavers, so over the last six years we have had ten modern apprenticeships in our Finance, Personnel, Asset Management and Trades Departments. Some of these were so successful that we were able to offer permanent employment to the trainees.

BENEFITS OF OUR GOOD PRACTICE:

We have a diverse workforce in terms of backgrounds and ages, which gives the company a useful mix of skills and a workplace where people are learning from each other. Customers can talk to a wide range of staff who may understand and empathise with them.

We do not lose key skills and experience because we continue to employ knowledgeable people who are near or over retirement age.

We bring school leavers into the company via Modern Apprenticeships and ‘grow’ our own talent.

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