The Older Worker
Many people retire for the wrong reasons. The legacies of their earlier working lives or even their current jobs can reduce their abilities, as can the design of their working environments.
Workplace design has been badly neglected by employers, policy makers and researchers. SPARC award holders are pioneering research on the older worker, by developing a commentary on the state of knowledge in the area and exploring improvements to jobs and workplaces.
Understanding the design of the workplace for the older worker
Professor Peter Buckle, Surrey University
12 months, £36,357
Poster: Older Workers,
Executive Summary: Workplace Design for the Older Worker
Keywords: Workforce Requirements, Workplace Design, Organisational Design, Office/Manual
Few workplaces are designed for older workers (65 years +) who want and need to continue working. There is little knowledge of what this workforce sector requires, how organisations view these issues or what help they need to accommodate older workers. This study will explore the match between older workers' capacities, abilities and expectations, and organisational requirements and strategies in the office and manual sectors. It will highlight the user perspective of being an older worker and the management perspective of employing an older workforce through discussion with managers, currently employed workers, those who retired at the traditional age, and those who retired early. This ergonomics study will explore strengths and weaknesses of workplace design by looking at individual (e.g. physical aspects of workplace, job scheduling, training) and organisational factors (e.g. team working, support, policies) and will highlight adjustments/ procedures/ policies/ support networks that organisations should adopt to ensure a healthy working environment for all, and to extend productive working lives.
Ageing in construction workers
Professor Alistair Gibb, Loughborough University
6 months, £33,073
Poster: Ageing and Physical Workloads,
Executive Summary: Understanding the Older Worker in Construction
Keywords: Skills Shortage, Physical Demands, Changing Workplace, Equipment Design
The primary aim of this project is to better understand the abilities and needs of older workers, through surveying them, to see how they fit within the changing workplaces of the construction industry. It should also establish the parameters of equipment design to see how new equipment, being introduced to assist construction workers generally, addresses the special needs of older workers. The need for this work has resulted from the construction industry's skills shortage – the early retirement of workers from the physically demanding workloads present in the construction industry being compounded by school leavers and graduates seeing the industry as 'dirty and dangerous' and seeking more appealing forms of employment.
SPARC Projects: Overview | Life in the Home | Streets, Buses and Cars | Care Systems | The Older Worker | Product and Interface Design | Cognition and Communication | Vision | Exercise and Diet | Chemical Biology of Ageing | Oxidative Stress and Ageing Mechanisms | SPARC Project downloads | SPARC Awards Background | Eligibility | Special Features | Resources | Review Process | FAQs about applications for SPARC Awards | Awards: Downloads | Funded Programmes |
