LSIS and the Association of Colleges have joined forces to prepare a suite of six case studies featuring the experiences of further education and skills providers who are already managing without fixed retirement ages.
 
The case studies are intended as a resource for the entire sector to show how individual providers:

• have identified and are overcoming barriers to older worker participation;

• are finding benefits from recruiting and retaining older workers;  and

• are tackling issues and opportunities that arise, in areas such as performance management, succession planning, flexible working, older worker recruitment, training and up-skilling, and managing health and safety.
The six colleges involved have reported advantages such as retaining invaluable knowledge and experience, saving on recruitment and redundancy costs, growing numbers of older job applicants, and the positive impact of older workers as mentors.  In general, all have gained an overall better understanding of managing an ageing workforce.

The case studies highlight the experiences of:

• Barnet College – which has balanced the need to retain older workers with the impact of redundancy and restructuring;

• Epping Forest College – where removing the fixed retirement age has helped avoid skills shortages in key business areas;

• Grantham College – which has seen increased workforce flexibility and age diversity;

• Stoke-on-Trent College – where older workers have been retained as part of strategic workforce and succession planning;

• Queen Alexandra College – which has been able to maintain and develop specialist skills not immediately available from new recruits; and

• Wakefield College – where removing the fixed retirement age has led to bureaucracy being minimised and improvements in the long-term productivity of the workforce.  

The case studies can be found on the Excellence Gateway.

Further information about implementing effective approaches to management of an age-diverse workforce is available in two publications – Extending working lives in the further education and skills sector and Supporting inclusive workforce development.