Around a third (30%) of respondents offer age-specific wellness programmes for their staff, according to a study by Mercer.
Its Age-friendly employer research surveyed three groups: 69 HR professionals, 1,376 employees and 25 recruitment agencies.
The study of HR professionals also found:
- 45% of respondents offer advice and support to staff caring for older relatives.
- 81% offer flexible working for staff of all ages.
- Just over half (52%) of respondents offer a programme to help their employees prepare for retirement.
- 36% have a health and/or absence analytics scheme for workers of all ages.
- 69% believe regular age discrimination checks, and reviewing their pay and benefits from an age perspective are effective or very effective.
- 83% believe adaptation of workplaces for older workers is effective or very effective in their organisation.
- 65% of respondents believe reviewing levels of pay across the age bands for the same jobs is an effective or very effective policy.
- 7% do not help their staff prepare financially for retirement.
Yvonne Sonsino, Europe innovation leader at Mercer, said: “For HR programmes to meet the needs of multi-generational workforces, recruitment, talent management and job design, retirement savings adequacy, employee education and training, as well as health and wellbeing programmes will need to be reviewed from a new perspective.
“Organisations that engage on savings and retirement planning with employees of all ages find a real competitive advantage to be gained. It is worrying that only 25% give significant support for planning for retirement to their staff. This will, and has, to change.
“Driven by the new pension freedoms, employees will need more help on understanding their choices. Employers will increasingly offer services to help employees make these decisions. At the same time, they will need to review their own workforce planning agenda, succession planning and their approach to the employment life cycle.”