Businesses are failing to utilise older workers

A recent survey in the UK has revealed that, despite most employers saying they have positive attitudes to older workers, in reality they are reluctant to recruit the over-50s and are less likely to provide training for employees in this age group.

The report is entitled Employer responses to an ageing workforce, and was compiled by the Centre for Research into the Older Workforce (CROW). The study found that many employers claim to prefer older workers to younger ones because of their attitude to work and their experience.

However, this attitude is often belied by the actions of managers when it comes to workers reaching at retirement age. Professor Stephen McNair, Director of CROW and co-author of the study, said: ‘Previous research has shown that a majority of workers over 50 would like to stay in work longer than they expect to do, but on a flexible or part-time basis. However, this study found that, because managers were keen to avoid complicated and potentially embarrassing conversations about retirement, and telling individuals that they are no longer required, many were avoiding discussions about flexible working and extending working life, and impose a compulsory retirement age, to avoid the risk of disputes. As a result, the talents of older people are being wasted, which is frustrating for them and a loss to the economy.’

He added: ‘Most employers claimed not to discriminate on grounds of age when selecting staff for training and, in some sectors, older workers were continuing to train. However, Government statistics show that most people are less likely to train as they get older. CROW is currently carrying out further research to explore why this happens.’

Report: poor email management will lead to customer loss

Research by leading web hosting company Fasthosts has revealed the strong feelings held by UK customers with regard to slow email response from companies.Eighty per cent of customers surveyed were disappointed by slow email response, and 90 per cent said it could directly lead them to choose a competitor.

Over ninety per cent of respondents to the survey, entitled The Customer Service Email Study, admitted to being more brand-loyal and more likely to increase spend with a company that responds swiftly, with the average customer prepared to wait no longer than 24 hours for a reply.

According to Fasthosts’ Chief Technology Officer, Mark Jeffries, poor email management and a lack of training provision by firms could explain the results. 

Over sixty per cent of companies surveyed said they had no training on email issues such as email management techniques, email etiquette, or data retention law. Fifty five per cent said they provided no formal training to their employees on the day-to-day use of their email system.

‘During busy periods, customer emails can often be neglected in favour of face-to-face contact or phone calls,’ added Jeffries. ‘The first step for any type or size of business is to have a policy in place for email response time, and conduct audits regularly to measure their performance.’

Study links job design with staff retention

A new US study has revealed that the benefits of simplifying job roles, in an attempt to raise productivity, are often outweighed by damage to the worker’s job satisfaction. The increasingly popular practice of breaking down a complex job into its individual components is no longer limited to jobs in the manufacturing industry, but is now prevalent in white collar positions also.

‘In a globally competitive marketplace, companies are trying to introduce efficiencies wherever they can improve their financial performance for stockholders,’ said a co-author of the study, Stephen E Humphrey, Assistant Professor of Management in the College of Business at Florida State University, adding, ‘one way they do that is by designing, or redesigning, jobs to make them more narrowly focused on specific tasks. While this may improve productivity in the short term, it appears to create a new set of problems in the longer term.’

These problems include worker dissatisfaction, poor work performance, higher stress levels, and ultimately higher staff turnover. As jobs become increasingly compartmentalised, so workers suffer a reduction in meaningful interaction with co-workers, and also a reduction in autonomy. According to the study, social interaction and autonomy are the two best predictors of job satisfaction.

The report is the result of over 40 years’ research on the effects work design has on employee attitudes and productivity, involving 259 studies and nearly 220,000 workers. It has lead Humphrey to firmly believe in the primacy of creating a strong sense of teamwork in the workplace, rather than the more short-sighted approach of creating stringent role compartmentalisation; ‘I can’t advocate that enough. Do teamwork in a smart way…Instruct them (employees) in a way that members want to be in that team.’

Visit http://garnet.acns.fsu.edu/~sehumphr/HumphreyEtAl2007.PDF to view the report in full.

E-Learning Providers Target Call Centre Industry

Drake Training Systems Ltd (DTSL), a unit of the multinational training and consultancy providers Drake International, have introduced an English language learning tool into the Philippine Internet café chain, Netopia.

Entitled Englishlink, the training programme takes about 240 hours, is divided into several lessons at different proficiency levels, and has video support. The programme is accessible to non-credit card users, and can be paid for over the counter in the Internet café.

DTSL have targeted the Philippine market for a number of reasons. Firstly, they believe that the call centre industry will require some 800,000 more workers by 2010; and secondly, the declining English proficiency among the college graduates that the call centre industry are targeting.

Aside from targeting call centre workers, Englishlink is also aimed at Filipino workers who are planning to work abroad. According to DTSL, these emigrants are facing increasingly stringent language requirements in their destination countries.