1 Aug 2014
Age diversity in SMEs: reaping the benefits
Explore SME attitudes to mature employees and an age-diverse workforce, age diversity benefits and challenges, and support for the extension of working lives
The CIPD and the Scottish Centre for Healthy Working Lives have worked together to explore the experiences of and attitudes towards age diversity in the workplace in small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
The findings show that the majority of SMEs (61%) are focusing their attention on recruiting a mixture of ages, indicating that this trend of an age-diverse workforce in SMEs is set to continue. Almost nine out of ten SME employers surveyed agree that the knowledge and skills of older workers are highly valuable. However, 34% provide no support for the extension of working life and almost half (46%) report that their organisation has no activities in place to ensure access to enough skilled and diverse people of all ages.
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