The change makers...
From the very beginning, we’ve nurtured the belief that helping link our members to job opportunities has to be one of our highest priorities.
This is because, as we all know, older workers face very real challenges when looking for work…a situation sometimes made more complex when we’re looking to work part time or on short term contracts.
The plan has always been to either host an age-friendly jobs board and/or to provide links to businesses that actively include older workers when they’re looking for staff.
However (and probably unsurprisingly) it’s becoming increasingly clear such a plan is going to be very difficult to get off the ground. It seems a lot of employers and recruiters are challenged by the idea and the reality of including older workers in their searches*.
So, instead of waiting and hoping for things to change, we think it’s time for all of us to take matters into our own hands and become the change makers.
In order to support this, we’re now shifting our focus towards helping older workers promote/advertise the skills and experience they have or a service they’d like to offer. And to do this, we're building a new section on the website**.
The range of skills, experience or services we’re able to offer are as diverse as our membership. They might be anything from teaching to taking dogs for a walk; systems analysis to senior management; bookkeeping or babysitting; website design or a wedding celebrant; carpentry or cooking; general office work or general management; floristry or freelance writing; hairdressing or helping at a help desk.
The possibilities are limitless.
We’re hoping to have this new section up on the website in the next few weeks.
Once it’s up, the next stage in our ‘change makers’ plan is to invite as many people as we possibly can to join us.
This is important because the more people we have, the more reasons there will be for employers and recruiters to take notice and in the process, realise what an extraordinary, rapidly growing and valuable resource we are.
* The Australian HR Institute in partnership with the Australian Human Rights Commission published a report last year which found only 25% of HR professionals are open to hiring people aged 65 and above “to a large extent” while around one in six organisations say they actively exclude older workers from the recruitment process
** The current working title for the new section is ‘work(r) findr
Meanwhile…
