Webinar Still on the Job
On Tuesday June 29th, EveryAGE Counts held a webinar examining some of the latest research on the value of fully including older workers in a diverse, multi-generational workforce.
Our campaign Co-Chair Robert Tickner facilitated a lively and engaging discussion with a panel featuring:
- Mr Mark Keese, Head of the Skills and Employability Division in the Directorate for Employment, Labour and Social Affairs at the OECD
- Dr Kay Patterson, Australian Age Discrimination Commissioner
- Ms Melissa Grober-Morrow, Director, Thought Leadership – Financial Resilience, AARP
- Rafal Chomik, Senior Research Fellow at the Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research (CEPAR)
Rafal Chomik spoke about his research on the economic impacts on ageism in the workplace and the negative impacts it has on the wider economy, Chomik says that Australia’s current performance on workplace inclusion for older Australians is “underwhelming” and a new approach is required.
Mark Keese from the OECD examined the economic benefits of increasing participation for older Australians wanting to work, making the case for why companies should invest more in recruiting older Australians. Keese says that Australia “needs to move away from using age as a marker of people’s abilities.”
Age Discrimination Commissioner Dr Kay Patterson gave the forum a deeper political insight into previous legislative achievements in combating ageism and explained what still needed to be done. Dr Patterson notes that while we have seen “a satisfying drop” in the number of companies who say they have a maximum requirement age, there is still work to do in making workplaces more inclusive for older Australians.
Joining the forum from Washington DC, Mellia Grober-Morrow spoke about the challenges and successes of the AARP campaign in the United States in combating ageism, with some valuable insights for Australia.