Advice for mature workers

Aimee Brown

Despite a career in the finance industry that spans four decades, Murray Campbell, 61, has struggled to find steady employment since he was made redundant from his long-term job a decade ago. And among older workers, he is hardly alone. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, more than half of all discouraged job seekers nationwide are aged between 45 and 64.

“I am Fellow Certified Practising Accountant qualified and I’ve held senior positions such as finance manager and director at various points in my career. When I was 51, I received an unexpected redundancy,” he says. “After that I did some contract work while looking for a permanent position and two years later I got that job. But nine months after that I was made redundant again. It was my second redundancy in three years and I found that extremely difficult to recover from. I’m now in contract employment but there was a period five years ago where for 18 months I had no work.”

The paradox is that while Campbell continues his struggle to find a long-term job, the industry he is working in is facing a serious skills shortage. Accounting body CPA Australia’s executive officer, Geoff Rankin, says the organisation recognises the difficulties faced by many of its older members and has released a report aimed at identifying barriers to mature-aged workers finding employment as a way of addressing industry skills shortages.

“It’s not only an issue affecting the accounting industry — it’s across the whole gambit,” Rankin says. “If you look at the ageing population in Australia and look at the fact we have a general skills shortage, having a flexible approach to addressing that shortage is essential. It’s sitting right in front of us in mature-aged workers.”
The report, A Mature Solution, was the culmination of a year-long study into the two-pronged issue and was jointly funded by the Federal Government’s Department of Employment and Workplace Relations.

It found the most significant challenges to older workers finding employment were negative perceptions held by employers, a lack of understanding about the job market, insufficient training in technical and soft skills and a lack of experience with technology. General manager of Link Recruitment Jason Cartwright says these findings accurately reflect what he sees in the job marketplace.

“There are a number of stereotypes around mature-aged workers held by employers that they have a hard time overcoming, but there are some companies that get it — they understand we’re an ageing population facing skills shortages in many industries,” he says. “Westpac is one company that has a good system in place. They’ve come out with a strategy that mirrors their client base by going out and employing a mature-aged workforce and they’ve had great results.”

Cartwright says companies often have good intentions about hiring older workers, but these get lost along the hiring chain. “In practice, a chief executive will say [a company] wants a strategy to hire more mature-aged workers, and they’ll brief HR which can implement that strategy,” he says. “Often that discrimination comes from the hiring manager, who is ultimately the one making the decisions.”

Cartwright says greater discussion is needed about the advantages of having older staff contributing to a workplace. “Research shows that mature-aged workers are often more stable, loyal and less likely to resign than younger workers so [an employer’s] investment in them will pay off,” he says. “They bring a whole raft of skills and knowledge to the workplace.

“They’ve been working for a long time and they can inject this knowledge into the work environment through a mentoring or coaching-type culture. The skills shortage is not going to go away any time soon. This is the workplace of the future and unless we engage mature-aged workers, the implications will be pretty serious.”

Oldies learn new tricks


Most common obstacles faced by mature-aged job-seekers:

• A perception that they’re inflexible;
• Other workers distrust their motives — some don’t believe older workers would be satisfied with lower paying and less demanding work than they’re qualified for;
• The cost and availability of appropriate training to update skills to prepare for a career change or re-enter the workforce.
• Ways of reducing these obstacles:
• Improve job opportunities by identifying industry sectors or business types that have trouble recruiting professional staff;
• Help older workers assess their skills, expectations and presentation, and set realistic goals;
• Educate employers about the value of older employees, encourage them to reassess recruitment policies and provide intergenerational management training.

* Source: A Mature Solution, CPA Australia, September 2006.

Aimee Brown is the editor of The Daily Telegraph’s CareerOne section.