1. 29 April 2013
The Momentum of the Ageing Workforce:
Implications of the Grey Wave &
Corresponding Mitigation Strategies
OHS Leaders Summit 2013
Prepared by Jason Allison

2. The ‘Grey Wave’ is coming!
The impact will be social, financial, physical and mental
Increased momentum in preparation and solution building is required
All stakeholders have an accountability - including ‘older workers’
2

3. Disproportionate growth in mature age population necessitates broad and
collaborative responses
Cause and Effect of the Ageing Population
Source: GIO Adaptation Based on The Australian Government the Treasury data
•Longevity
•Fertility
•Retirement
Factors Driving
•Workforce Growth
25%
•Age 65+ Growth
200%
Disproportionate
Growth
•Labour Market
•% Aged
•Revenue Base
•Barriers
Result in Challenges
•Academia
•Government
•Business
•Society
Necessitating
Responses
3

4. 4
An interview with Susan Ryan, Age Discrimination Commissioner
Necessitating Responses (Government) - The Momentum of the Ageing
Workforce: Implications of the Grey Wave & Corresponding Mitigation
Strategies

5. Necessitating Responses (Business) - Insurance Industry
Input into Government at both State and Federal level to ensure the insurance
industry perspectives and impacts are understood
Prevention and Injury Management strategies by insurers in partnership with
employers
Stronger engagement with stakeholders to influence the ‘mind shift’
Reasonably necessary treatment, effective treatment, baseline for pre-injury
functionality
Underwriting and claims practices need to account for impact
5

6. Chris McHugh, EGM Statutory Portfolio has
participated in the Consultative Forum on
Mature Age Participation advising the
Federal Government
Through involvement with Monash
University and the Older Workers and Work
Ability Conference, Suncorp is connected to
a global community of researchers and
subject matter experts in the field of work
ability and ageing workforce
Suncorp’s statutory business is participating
in a work ability survey – research funded
by NSW Department of Ageing – in which
our own staff will be surveyed and
appropriate recommendations incorporated
into our HR strategy
Major Sponsor Consultative Forum
Research Community
Work Ability Survey
Necessitating Responses (Business) - Activities being undertaken by
Suncorp / GIO
We’re being proactive in the face of shifting market dynamics
6

7. Necessitating Responses (Academia) - Latest research from academia
(representative samples)
Age management
The APS and its Ageing Workforce
Understanding the Future Separation Intentions and Behaviour of Older Workers in the APS
Incorporating Ageing into APS Human Capital Planning
Ageism in the labour market
Perceptions of Age and Aging among Managers and Employees in the New Economy: An International Case-Study of Information Technology Employment
Working against type: Stereotype threat effects on mature-age workers
Prolongation of working lives
Prolonging working life amongst rural older General Practitioners (GPs)
Securing The Future: Retention Of Older Healthcare Workers In Rural Victoria
Applying interventions to support the older residential aged care workforce
Work Ability and vocational training in the Health system
Skills maintenance and productivity
Career development and mobility management of older workers in Europe
Predictors of the ability for older workers to stay longer at work: findings from the Visat longitudinal study
How to Manage Aging Problems? ―Japanese Challenges to Make the Society More Productive
Tapping Mature Talent in the U.S.
Work ability over the life course
Age, work ability and work-related injury in Australian workers
The relationships between worker age, work-related injury and work ability in Australian workers
The impact of ageing on work-related injury and disease
7

8. Work ability theory and
measurement
Professor Philip Taylor
19 February 2013

9. 9
Section 1: Work ability
theory

10. 10
Work ability: Definition
Work ability is the intersection of personal and
organisation resources at work

11. 11
The holistic model of work ability

12. 12
Model of work ability

13. 13
Importance of different elements of the model
 Individual:
– Intrinsic benefits people derive from their work, such as social
contact, valued status and maintaining and extending abilities.
– Social support received from primarily co-workers, but also
immediate family and community.
– Psychological well-being and physical health.
– Employee awareness of occupational health and safety risks
– Work-life imbalances.

14. 14
Importance of different elements of the model
 Organisation:
– Respectful treatment in the work place.
– Respondents’ assessment of their immediate supervisor, in terms
of their competence, the extent of career support offered,
communication and social support were important for determining
their level of work ability.
– Experiences of discriminatory behaviours.
– Extent of autonomy and control employees have in their work.

15. 15
Factors associated with low work ability
 Factors that predict the lowest levels of work ability include, in order of
importance:
– Negative evaluations of co-worker competence
– Being a machinery operator or driver
– Being in clerical or administrative roles
– Reporting a mental disease
– Having a wound, laceration, amputation or internal organ damage
– Having an infectious or parasitic disease
– Shiftwork
– Low household income
– Lack of access to flexi-time work arrangements.

16. Work ability negates the influence of some
demands on psychosocial work factors
Outcome Factor Work Demand Types
Personally
meaningful work
Job design
Work pace
Cognitive
demands
Emotional
demands
Task demands
Excess workload
Job satisfaction
Job insecurity
W
O
R
K
A
B
I
L
I
T
Y

17. 17
Section 2: Utility of the
construct

18. 18
Utility of the work ability construct
 Driven by economic imperatives to contain costs arising from population
ageing, governments internationally are aiming to increase participation
by older workers.
 Consensus that tackling the issue requires multi-faceted and integrated
strategies.
 Work ability construct and a framework for its workplace promotion
offers such an approach.
 Sustaining high levels of workforce participation by older workers will
depend in part on efforts to ensure that work ability is maintained over a
working life.

19. Review & Questions
19

20. References
McInerney, Andrew, An Ageing Workforce and Workers’ Compensation-
What are the implications in particular with an increasing national
Retirement Age, Institute of Actuaries of Australia
http://www.abs.gov.au/
AGEING WORKFORCE REPORT, May 2007, WorkCover NSW
http://www.centrelink.gov.au/internet/internet.nsf/individuals/ssp_age_pensi
on.htm
McInerney, Andrew, An Ageing Workforce and Workers’
Compensation, Journal Vol.33 No.02,
From Research to reality - Volume 12/Number 2, 2009
MJA 2008; 189 (8): 447-450
Business Work and Ageing: Work Ability Program, Swinburne University of
Technology
www.theinstitute.com.au
http://www.centrelink.gov.au/internet/internet.nsf/individuals/ssp_age_pensi
on.htm
http://www.fordhealth.com.au/Newsletters_hb/feb08_managing_ageing_wor
kforce.php
http://www.aarpinternational.org/conference_sub/conference_sub_show.htm
?doc_id=1415966
Urban, Eva, Workers Compensation and An Ageing Workforce ,SPUM
article for Veracity May 2010, P6
Realising the Economic Potential of Senior Australians: Turning Grey into
Gold - The Advisory Panel’s third and final report delivered December 2011
http://www.treasury.gov.au/EPSA/content/publications/grey_gold/downloads
/grey_gold.pdf
Ageing and the Barriers to Mature Age Labour Force Participation in
Australia - A report of the Consultative Forum on Mature Age
Participation, December 2011
20
Realising the Economic Potential of Senior Australians - The Advisory
Panel’s first report delivered August 2011
Realising the Economic Potential of Senior Australians: Enabling
Opportunity - The Advisory Panel’s second report delivered November 2011
Realising the Economic Potential of Senior Australians: Turning Grey into
Gold - The Advisory Panel’s third and final report delivered December 2011
The Older Workers and Work Ability Conference: Program and
Presentations – Latest research on workforce ageing from leading experts in
Australia and internationally, December 2011, including Juhani Ilmarinen /
Finnish Institute of Occupational Health / Professor Philip Taylor / Monash
University http://owwac.com.au/index.php
National Seniors Australia, Productive Ageing Centre, 2009
Suncorp Life Insurance (survey) and APIA (survey)
Institute of Actuaries of Australia White Paper: Australia’s Longevity
Tsunami, August 2012
Suncorp interview with Susan Ryan, Age Discrimination
Commissioner, 2012
http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4102.0Main+Features
40March+Quarter+2012
http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/publications/htmlfiles/ef0639.htm
http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/research/0296.htm
http://capricorn.bc.edu/agingandwork/database/search/case_study

21. Contact Details
For further information please contact:
Jason Allison
Chief Workers Compensation Underwriting & Portfolio
Statutory Portfolio & Underwriting Management, Commercial Insurance
18 Jamison Street, Suncorp Place, Sydney NSW 2000
Telephone: +61 (0) 2 8121 0614
21

22. Appendix – Practice Examples
22

23. Adjustment of
physical work
environment
Adjustment of
psychosocial
work environment
GOOD WORK ABILITY, HEALTH
AND COMPETENCE
GOOD PRODUCTIVITY
AND QUALITY OF WORK
GOOD QUALITY OF LIFE
AND WELL-BEING
GOOD RETIREMENT,
MEANINGFUL, SUCCESSFUL,
AND PRODUCTIVE
'' THIRD AGE ''
Professional
competence
Health
functional Capacities
Finnish Institute of
Occupational Health

24. 24
What affects workability?
• Individual : health, functional capacity, competences,
attitudes.
• Workplace : physical, technological, mental and social
demands of work, work community and management,
organisational culture, and work environment.
• Societal, such as employment and education policies,
social and health services, and addressing age
discrimination.

25. Workability promotion
Based on: adjustments to physical and psycho-social work
environment; promoting health, lifestyle; and updating skills
e.g.
 reducing repetitive movements
 changingsupervisors’ attitudes, and
 increasing vigorous physical exercise
Predict better workability in physical, mixed and mentally
demanding work.
Promoting workability reduces
absenteeism
disability
premature retirement
and increases productivity, competence, life quality and well-being,
effects which carry over to retirement.

26. 26
Redesigning Work for an Ageing Society – intervention
study 1
 Staff of a company providing road-side assistance to drivers
 Response rate 49 per cent (59 of 119 employees)
 Key recommendations:
– Health promotion (obesity, low up take of existing initiatives, low
frequency reports of poor health and work related health problems)
– Development and utilisation of skills (respondents reported mismatch
between skills and job demands)
– Injury and hazard exposure (Avoidable and unavoidable injury risks
identified by respondents)
– Management relations (disjunction in communication and relations in
the organisation)
– Flexible work (Respondents highlight flexibility as key to prolonging
working life)

27. 27
Redesigning Work for an Ageing Society – intervention
study 1
 Participants undertook over 6 months:
 daily monitoring of diet,
 exercise
 tobacco use, alcohol use and other health factors
 structured ‘Get healthy challenge activities’
 WAS demonstrated statistically significant improvement
 Physiological measures improved
 Weight, BMI and waist circumference.

28. 28
Redesigning Work for an Ageing Society – intervention
study 2
 Staff of small national University in Australia
 47 per cent (618 of 1300 employees)
 Key recommendations:
– Health promotion (‘sedentary’ staff at risk, notable absence of health
and well-being programs engaging the entire workforce)
– Career planning/training integration (retention rates improved with the
provision of training for younger workers more than older workers)
– Knowledge transfer (formalising mentoring as part of phased
retirement)
– Workload pressures (large proportion of staff reporting extreme work
load pressure creating risk of physical and psychological ill health)
– Everyday discrimination (Low frequency but high impact on WA scores)
– Retention related to; flexibility, management support, training, challenging
but not excessive work demands

29. 29
Redesigning Work for an Ageing Society – intervention
study 2
 Staff aged over 45 participated in ‘Walking to wellness’ program
 Pedometers used to track step counts on work days
 Physical activity increased significantly for training compared to
control group
 Results confounded by concurrent organisational changes
 Qualitative and anecdotal evidence suggested restructuring created
uncertainty among participants
 No statistically significant improvement in WAS
 Statistically significant reduction in average waist circumference of
approximately two centimetres.

30. 30
Promotion of work ability: integration of actions
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
40 45 50 55 60 65
Age (yrs)
Health promotion,
Ergonomics,
Management training
Health promotion
No action
Work Ability Index
(WAI)