Centre for Workplace Leadership Ageing Workforce Industry Forum

An ‘Ageing Workforce: Challenges and Solutions’ Industry Forum event was held in Brisbane on Wednesday November 25th. The event was organised by the Centre for Workplace Leadership in partnership with Workplace Health and Safety Queensland and hosted at the Bendigo and Adelaide Bank premises in Adelaide Street.  Professor Peter Gahan, Director of the Centre for Workplace Leadership, spoke about the context of demographic ageing and the ageing workforce and how the time was ripe for industry partnership and leadership in this area.

Dr Ruth Williams, Research Fellow at the Centre for Workplace Leadership, presented on some practical suggestions organisations can implement regarding age-friendly workplace policies and practices. Representatives from Stay Fresh- the catering division of Qantas, and Holy Cross Laundry Services also presented on their case studies of how they conducted workforce audits to determine where their gaps and insufficiencies were regarding their mature age workers and how they chose to address these issues. Around 30 industry representatives attended the event, from government, education, aviation, catering and information systems.

The feedback from this event was very positive and it is possible that this Forum will become a travelling roadshow.