Manpower sets out the age diversity challenges for the staffing industry

Manpower joined other leading UK employers this week at the launch of a new campaign by the Employers Forum on Age (EFA) to encourage employers to take action in readiness for age discrimination laws due in December 2006.

Hazel Detsiny, marketing and training director at Manpower spoke about the challenges facing the staffing industry.

She said Dealing with younger workers is not a problem for an industry that employs people with an average age of just 22. The challenge that Manpower and others in our industry have to tackle in the short to medium term is how to attract people right across the age spectrum, to balance the industry's age range and even more importantly offer those same opportunities to develop skills mobility for people entering a second or third career.

Detsiny continues We are addressing our own policies, by increasing our retirement age and tackling practical issues such as when occupational pensions can be drawn. Manpower's commitment to age diversity is not about altruism, it's about sound business practice.

For Manpower, an age-balanced workforce provides huge benefits to business - from higher retention rates, increased flexibility, a broader skills base and improved reliability, commitment and loyalty. Manpower is already
putting age diversity into practice at its multimedia, state of the art contact centre in the Scottish Borders. Here, one in seven employees is over 50 and one-third over 40. Also, in an industry dominated by part time
female workers, more than 50% of the staff at the contact centre is male.

Staff attrition is low at 10% - compared with an industry average of 40-50% - providing clients with a stable, skilled workforce, a key factor in successful customer relationship marketing.

The EFA launch event was attended by some of the largest organisations in the UK as well as Barbara Roache MP, Minister for Social Exclusion and Equality. Manpower is a core member of the EFA, which represents over 160 member organisations that collectively employ over three million people.