The business case for age diversity

"At Nationwide we want our employees to take pride in working for an organisation that lives by values. These apply equally to our customers and our employees. In order to achieve this we strive to ensure that all employees are treated equally and fairly regardless of age. We have policies to enable this and monitor the effectiveness regularly - one example being via our annual employee survey. 'Viewpoint'. Apart from any other consideration, this is commercially the right thing to do."

Keith Astill, Head of Corporate Personnel, Nationwide Building Society.

The background-business drivers and imperatives

Nationwide has many drivers for promoting age diversity both internally and in the external market place.

Nationwide experienced a loss of corporate memory at the time of the merger with Anglia Building Society in 1987. This had a detrimental effect on the business and the composition of the workforce as some business areas experienced a high turnover at the same time as large numbers of younger employees were recruited in response to the launch of a new product. This prompted Nationwide to bring back the stability brought about by mixed aged teams.

Nationwide’s two key sites are based in Swindon and Northampton, which both have high employment rates. In this business environment, Nationwide’s commitment to promoting an age diverse workforce ensures that the best people for the job are recruited from the widest pool and retained to achieve competitive advantage.

What Nationwide did

As a founder member of the Employers Forum on Age, Nationwide has been at the forefront of innovative practices since 1991, when age was included in the equal opportunities policy. Since then, the Society has been committed to an inclusive employment environment that aims to attract and retain employees across the age spectrum and has developed an age strategy that is based on promoting the benefits of an age diverse workforce. This has included:

Business benefits of an age diverse workforce are linked to corporate business objectives.
Obtained top level commitment to age diversity issues.
Communicated the benefits of age diversity to employees and line managers through the Intranet and employees’ newsmagazine.
Using targeted advertisements to reach and attract a wide range of applicants.
Removal of age bars from all recruitment advertisements.
The introduction of a telephone shortlisting process has been instrumental in achieving an age diverse workforce. By using objective skills criteria, the preliminary assessments of candidates reduced the risk of assumptions being made on appearance and qualifications.
Integrated age diversity into all personnel policies so that employees at both ends of the age spectrum are not seen to be treated favourably.
Listened to the views on age diversity from employees, which has led to improvements in polices and procedures.
Included a question in the annual employee satisfaction survey and asked employees whether they agreed with the statement, ‘I believe that opportunities for development and career development are equal for all, regardless of age.’
Age is included in the managing diversity key performance indicator.
In 1999, introduced an IT recruitment scheme which targeted workers at both ends of the age spectrum.
Launched flexible retirement in October 2001, which gave all employees the opportunity to work up until age 70.
Won the DfEE sponsored Personnel Today award for Promoting Age Diversity in the workplace in November 2000.

What Nationwide learnt

Integrating age into all employment policies ensured that the working environment values the contribution of all employees and meets the needs of employees at different life stages.
Securing top level commitment has kept age diversity high on the organisational agenda.
By monitoring employee satisfaction and workforce statistics, progress can be measured and targets are achieved.
Use employee casestudies to demonstrate your organisation’s commitment to age diversity.

In future Nationwide will – what next – next steps

With the launch of flexible retirement, Nationwide will monitor the level of take up and communicate good news stories internally and externally.
Nationwide will continue to share its experience and support other organisations who are considering introducing flexible retirement schemes.

Benefits to the business

As a result of these actions, Nationwide have now identified the following business benefits:

Wider labour pool –Nationwide’s enlightened approach to age diversity was credited when the Society was rated 30th in the Sunday Times Best Employers to work for survey in March 2001. Positive press coverage such as this, has resulted in an increase in applications for employment.
Reduced turnover – The turnover for employees at both ends of the age spectrum is 4% compared to 10.37% for the Building Society.
Improved performance – 93.3% of employees aged under 25 and 97.7% of employees aged over 50 were performance rated good, excellent or excellent.
Increased employee satisfaction- in this year’s employee satisfaction, 80% of employees agreed with the statement, ‘I believe that development and career development opportunities are equal for all employees regardless of age.’
Reduced recruitment and retention costs-replacement costs (recruitment and training) for a member of staff is between £5000 and £8000. As a result of reduced turnover in the age groups at both ends of the spectrum, Nationwide estimates that they have saved over £7 million.

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