Research

Centre for Research into the Older Workforce

Supporting employers in adapting their human resource management policies and practices to adapt to ageing demographics.

Through research for the UK government, European Commission, Trades Union Congress and CIPD, the centre has investigated older workers’ career aspirations and retirement plans; social policies which impact on career trajectories; and bespoke age management approaches of businesses across sectors and countries.

Group lead

Professor Matt Flynn

Email M.C.Flynn@hull.ac.uk

Telephone +44 (0)1482 463565

The Challenge

Through our research, we have helped employers across a range of sectors and countries to support employers in managing ageing workforces, enabling older workers to pursue meaningful jobs, and creating career paths for younger ones. Recent projects include:

The age management guide for the UK social partners: TUC and CIPD
A good practice guide for small and medium sized businesses
An online tool to support employers and unions to discuss workplace active ageing
Research on the experiences of people who leave the Armed Forces after the age of 50 in finding work which makes use of their skills and experiences.

The Approach

We have worked with employers (e.g. NHS, local education authorities and large and small businesses), unions, government and stakeholder organisations in investigating innovative approaches to age and work. We have:

Run workshops with employers and union representatives on age management
Spoken with older workers about their career and work aspirations
Developed good practice guides in collaboration with stakeholder organisations and government

Aims

To investigate and identify career aspirations and retirement expectations of older workers
To identify good practice in age management of businesses across sectors and countries
To help reconcile competing interests of workers and businesses as well as between older and younger workers within the context of ageing workforces

Projects

Active Ageing through Social Partnership and Industrial Relations in Europe

European Commission

Find out more

NHS Working Longer Review Group Call for Evidence

NHS Employers

Read the report

Career Transitions of Service Leavers after the Age of 50

Officers Association

More information

Foresight Future of Manufacturing: the impact of ageing on supply and demand issues

BIS

Managing a Healthy Ageing Workforce: an SME business imperative

HSW Scotland

Find out more

Seminars

Transition from Work to Retirement: Extended or Precarious Working Lives?

Our theme for this seminar was the growing precarity of older workers’ employment. In Guy Standing’s book The Precariat: The Dangerous New Class, the author argues that older people are increasingly joining the ‘precariat’, by taking low-level jobs to supplement dwindling pension incomes.

Research and Policy Issues on Active Ageing and Employment in Later Life

Our Older Workers Research Seminars broke new ground by visiting the University of Sheffield, where Professor Alan Walker and colleagues have ploughed deep furrows of research into age management and public policy, over nearly three decades.

Find out more about this seminar series.
Members

Professor Matt Flynn

Professor of Human Resource Management | m.c.flynn@hull.ac.uk

Dr Chris Ball

Research Fellow in the Department of Business Studies at Newcastle University

Outputs and publications

You can find our publications on the Centre for Research into the Older Workforce Website.

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