The business case for age diversity

The background – business drivers / imperatives

How / Why did RBS make that leap of faith – what convinced the team to look at age?

Following a review of policies, RBS identified some age related issues in job related criteria, training & development and were concerned that some decisions were based on assumptions
They conducted an age profiling exercise in one business unit, which showed that the average age of staff was 27, but that of the clerical population was 22, 15% of whom had less than one year’s experience, and that over 35s were under-represented. This bias to the young created sufficient interest to encourage the Diversity team to measure more.

What The Royal Bank of Scotland did

A retail recruitment pilot was carried out in Edinburgh (and later Manchester) in early 2001. The pilot focussed on raising awareness of possible age bias

A communication programme to the regional branch network was designed, in particular, to overcome the fear that younger managers have of managing older workers
A standard recruitment process was introduced encouraging a better job criteria match with people. Telephone screening was introduced and local HR teams trained
An advertising agency was commissioned to help convey the message that RBS was interested in 35+ candidates, the campaign ran in local buses, radio, cinema and newspapers as well as on-line
Managers were provided with a briefing sheet, and following a standardised induction process local branch managers were asked to assess new recruits

What The Royal Bank of Scotland found / learnt

They received a higher proportion of applications from over 35s than previously, these candidates were considered ‘better quality’ than other applicants and ‘able to hit the ground running’ because of they were keen, enthusiastic and had more experience
The new intake had a lower turnover rate and retention levels rose
The pilot project demonstrated business benefit / value – the pilot policies were viewed as ‘common sense’ and people questioned ‘why we were not doing this before?
The results were sufficiently impressive to be fed back to the Board. The pilot programme helped establish top-level buy in for age diversity.
People need to be prepared for change, but once prepared, people learn more through working with a mixed age workforce than they do through training that challenges stereotypes

In future The Royal Bank of Scotland will – what next – next steps

The pilot programme is due for nation-wide roll-out over 2001/02
The pilot programme has helped the diversity team establish a budget for further action and allowed resources to be diverted to this area
‘First year attrition’ and how to reduce it, will be addressed
new measurements will be put in place to demonstrate good performance and to further challenge stereotypes

Benefits to the business

Reduced training time
Understanding the product requirements of the more mature customer.
Quicker 'team fit'

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