In the days after being featured in an Information Age story in 2019, Richard Jones’ business PrimeL was inundated with interest.

The company, which helps to place older Australians in part-time, full-time and contract employment, received more than 1,000 registrations in just days, with Jones quickly turning his attention to finding them work.

But met with age discrimination and companies are unwilling to hire older workers, this proved to be a very difficult mission.

“We naturally thought that having such great talent on our books, business was going to be easy, but I guess we overlooked the fundamental problem that many employers were ‘pushing back’ and we were struggling to secure good opportunities for many of them,” Jones told Information Age.

So, Jones and his company looked to novel and innovative solutions to help their wealth of new clients, including through flexible working arrangements and offshore assignments.

“Interestingly enough we did find that a number of developing countries appear to value the experience and steady hand that our resources brought to the table, and we have since placed a number of these individuals on both short and long-term international assignments,” he said.

A new approach to an old problem

The company has now also been securing short-term contracts, CIO-as-a-service, technical returnships, mentoring and entrepreneurship program contracts for its clients. (Returnships refer to programs aiming to help someone gradually return to work after a significant amount of time off.)

And Jones said the COVID pandemic has made this situation worse, with PrimeL’s new clients getting younger and younger.

“Before COVID the minimum age of registrants we were seeing was around 50,” Jones said.

“Since COVID, we are now regularly seeing candidates in their early 40s registering with us, having been displaced due to their job being moved offshore to a more cost-effective country or more recently, due to company-wide layoffs.”

Companies like PrimeL will be even more important in the coming decades, with Australia, like much of the world, facing a rapidly ageing workforce where individuals will likely be working for longer.

Currently, 16 per cent of the Australian population is over 65 years old, and population growth is expected to slow in the coming decades to 1.1 per cent per year over the next 40 years, compared to 1.4 per cent over the previous four decades.

The proportion of Australians of a working age has also declined.

In the 20 years to 2020 this figure increased by just over 31 per cent, compared to overall population growth of more than 42 per cent.

As PrimeL has demonstrated, this means that Australian businesses, governments and individuals will need to adapt to support this ageing workforce and better embrace older workers, particularly in tech.

“Employers need to change their thinking about ageism and consider the benefits of having a truly diverse and blended workforce and the real impact it will have on their bottom line,” Jones said.

“Employees need to accept the reality of a changing workforce, be more open to change as well as relish the opportunity to embrace life-long learning, whether that be personal, professional or technical.”

A tripartite solution

A new report by BSI based on a survey of 932 business leaders in nine countries across seven sectors, including in Australia, has looked at what needs to be put in place to better support an age-diverse workforce.

It found that across the board, investing in employee physical and mental health is a key plank in ensuring older employees are supported, along with the availability of flexible work and reskilling opportunities.

The report found that action is needed from companies, governments and individuals to improve age diversity in the workforce, something that Jones backs.

“We have always believed that to fix this issue of ‘too old to hire, too young to retire’, we need a tripartite support model made up of government, employers and employees,” he said.

“We feel that the government needs to be offering incentives to employers hiring mature workers and financially supported re-skilling and training programs, especially aimed at upskilling a skilled mature workforce.”

According to the report, more than 55 per cent of business leaders in Australia surveyed said that physical and mental health wellbeing is most important for individual career development, followed by flexible work and financial incentives to remain in work.

The majority of those surveyed called for government tax incentives for employee wellbeing and investment in training through tax incentives.

They also urged businesses to offer flexible work, personalised rewards and benefits, and better diversity and inclusion training.