Best Companies to Work for agenda – where is ‘age’?

We are at an interesting point in time.  Diverse workforces make for better performance. But Best Companies to Work For awards don’t look at diversity as success criteria. If you want evidence on diversity and performance, look at McKinsey’s various reports that have been tracking this over the last decade. The latest is Diversity Wins which states that ‘the business case remains robust and the relationship between diversity on executive teams and the likelihood of financial outperformance has strengthened over time’.

Age as one of the diversity pillars

At Next-Up, as we are having discussions with professional firms and employers generally about diversity. It is clear that ‘diversity’ means different things to different organisations. And age is the last pillar for them to add in/address in their workforce diversity and inclusion policies and plans. Initially, diversity was looking to address getting more women (and others) into senior positions. Older, white men dominated these roles so age was not a top issue to address.

What I am finding is that employers recognise that a good workplace should have diversity of age – it just feels right, seems sensible. But when you make age part of your diversity pillar, no-one seems to know quite where to start in terms of what needs doing.

I put this question to Andy Briggs, when my colleague Trevor Hatton and I interviewed him for our podcast, Re-think Retirement.  He said, ‘Start with the data’. 

How many employees aged 50+ do you have?

This point really came to life as we are working with our first employer who is about to beta test our online platform (for employees coming up to retirement). We chatted about how to message this to his colleagues. John said, “I wonder how many people we have aged 50+?”.  They had the information, so it was just a question of dicing the data; they hadn’t seen a need to do this before. He found the findings surprising. His workforce has a fifth of employees aged 50+. His perception was there were probably only a few people.

I am now thinking about the messaging of our platform and which organisations will be most interested. Instinctively I am thinking this will be organisations that care about their employees and feature in Best Companies to Work for award lists. So, I have been looking at the criteria for Best Companies to Work For awards. Interestingly diversity doesn’t get a mention.

What are the criteria for Best Companies to Work For awards?

The Sunday Times was behind the original Best Companies to Work For awards. They are still a market leader but there are now a plethora of other awards.  These are the criteria – and diversity isn’t getting a mention

• Sunday Times Best Companies to Work For awards (which look as if they have just stopped this year) use a questionnaire to employees. This examines how each respondent feels about eight areas of their working life: Leadership; My Manager; Personal Growth; Wellbeing; My Team; Giving Something Back; My Company and Fair Deal’.

• Glassdoor and Indeed’s awards are based on employee reviews on their sites, as you would expect.  Glassdoor says the reviews are based on ‘overall company rating, career opportunities, compensation and benefits, culture and values, senior management, work-life balance, recommend to a friend and six-month business outlook’.  I guess areas such as career opportunities, culture and values will all need to have diversity addressed in these to do well. There will not be great scores in any of these areas if people are feeling excluded.

• Great Place to Work (yes, this is an organisation itself) has teamed with Fortune for the last 20 years to produce their lists.  They say that a great place to work is where ‘employees trust the people they work with, have pride in the work they do, and enjoy the people they work with’.  They have added new metrics in recent years and now measure ‘Values, Innovation, Financial Growth, Leadership Effectiveness, Maximizing Human Potential, and Trust’.

I guess the bit where I see age being an issue is in ‘maximising human potential’.  I first became aware of the problem when PPMA commissioned research from Jobsgopublic. They surveyed two groups of people: a younger generation aged 16 to 24 and an older generation aged 50+. The findings were complete opposites. Most younger employees (75%) said their skills were recognised and valued. Shockingly, only 25% of the older generation could say the same.

Recognise and use the skills of workforce aged 50+

So, I went round the houses on this!  It makes sense that awards for Best Companies to Work For don’t look at diversity as a specific measure. We can assume there is good diversity if employees feel valued. 

My original question was to find how the best organisations measure good diversity policies. I am no further forward on this. I hoped Best Companies to Work For awards would give me some clues – but they don’t give a framework for doing this. My search to find what and how companies should look at age to ensure proper diversity will continue.

Please contact us if you are happy to share insights around ‘age’ in your diversity pillars. We would love to research and discuss this further.