-67%
Solution
Question 3- Populations Ageing Rapidly; Challenges for People Professionals
In United Nations (2024) report, it noted that the ageing population has increased with 6% from 1990 to 9% in 2019. In particular, by 2019, the number of individuals aged 60 years and older were 1 billion. This is with WHO (2024) noting on the likelihood of the population increasing rapidly to 1.4 billion by 2030 and 2.1 billion by year 2050. For this population, Pew Research Center (2024) hypothesised that more than 9% of the adult of age 75 and more are employed comprising the most significant working population in the modern workforce. As a result of this, CIPD (2022) note that people professionals are prompted to improve their attraction, management and development of the ageing populations.
There are different challenges which are an attribute of the increasing ageing population globally;
Physical Health Issues
The rapidly ageing population has a direct implication to the people practice professionals owing to the high-level possibility of encountering health issues. This is supported by Nicholson and Mayho (2017) report noting that illness or disability have a more likelihood of increasing their prevalence as a person ages. This is with upto 60% of the ageing employees having long-term health conditions. For example, in Saudi Arabia case where my organisation (Saudi Aramco) operates in, for employees of age 60 and above are noted to have an increased possibility of impaired mental ability and mental agility impacting directly on their offsetting of experiences and established skills. The impact of the ageing population to the people professionals is identified in Salam (2023) to include need for an improved caring tendency, being concerned with their interests and compassionate for adding their years in a dignified and independence manner. Further, with Saudi Aramco being an industrial organisation, they are majorly investing on initiatives meant for lowering the risks of falls due to their gradual weakening muscles. All these initiatives cumulatively impact on the budget available for the people practice professionals for facilitating their employees. This is supported by IMF (2017) report which note that having more elderly employees lead to straining of their available budget due to the high overall costs of health and retirement initiatives targeting the elderly.
Lack of Connection/Link with the Team
In a report in EML (2022) evaluating the determinants of successful organisation in the highly competitive modern business environment, relevant insights were obtained. The authors of the report hypothesised that 75% of the employees identify teamwork and collaboration as very critical. This is with 56 of the employers noted as using online-based collaboration tools and social media for communicating with employees. For the ageing population, Barakovic Husic et al. (2020) noted that it is a challenge for this category of employees to together in their work environment leading to an increased morale. This is since they find it hard for the elderly employees relating appropriately to interests and beliefs of young employees. In Saudi Aramco for example, as a result of the existence of the ageing employees, the organisation is largely affected by inefficient interactions reflected in the organisation bottom-line. This is with the embrace of social media and other modern communication strategies being a challenge for people practice professionals. A different perspective of this effect was introduced by Kollmann et al. (2020) through the embrace of Equity Theory. The findings noted on differences in terms of appreciating their business environment occurrences. In Saudi Aramco for example, this has been manifested by differences in their views regarding proportionally over-rewarded (meaning obtaining more monetary rewards for low task input) and reduced employees job satisfaction.
Technological Changes
In a Hecker et al. (2021) report evaluating on the impact of ageing workforce to people practice professionals, appropriate insights were obtained. The research findings noted that it is only 5% of the employees of age 60s and 10% in their 50s are in a position of embracing programming language as opposed to 23% and 28% for those aged 18-30 and in their 30s. Similarly, from the report, only 12% of employees in their 50s compared to 58% of employees in their 30s are in a position of embracing communication software in their roles including emails and instant messaging. To support these findings, Sundstrup et al. (2022) hypothesised that introducing new technologies in workplace has a positive and negative implication of the inclusion of the elderly employees. In Saudi Aramco case, it has been challenging for the elderly employees to be in a position of grasping new technologies successfully compared to young counterparts.
Despite of the negative challenges, there are also positive implications of the rapidly aging population. This include;
Improved Safety Measures
During the time of COVID-19, the elderly population was largely impacted by the challenges of the pandemic. In particular, Bui et al. (2020) report noted that 93% of all deaths which is a vast majority from the COVID-19 pandemic represented the employees who are 55 years old and older. This is supported by Pit et al. (2021) research which identified COVID-19 as largely impacting the elderly with 63% decreased unemployment owing to lack of proportionate implications of the pandemic. As a result of this, organisations have been working on different policies and protocols intended to manage the health issues for all people in the population. This specifically include updating their safety measures put in place for reduction of risks with the ageing population and workforce in a general context.
Learning opportunities
With the global aging population increasing, this also has a positive implication on increased experiences of the employees and available opportunities to leverage on. The experience will increase as WHO (2022) report note that in years 2015 and 2050, there would be an increase with almost double of the people of age above 60 years. In Saudi Aramco for example, with the ageing employees increasing, this provide an appropriate opportunity for the younger employees to learn from them. Cumulatively, this has a positive implication on their experience and also ability to execute their functions in highly competitive business environment where the organisation operates from.
Improved Training
As earlier noted, with the ageing populations having challenges with understanding and embracing modern ways of working including technologies, new capacity development initiatives are pursued by people professionals. As evidenced in Ackerman and Kanfer (2020) the best practice include assessing the talent gaps and creating relevant opportunities for learning the skills. People practice professionals in Saudi Aramco for instance develop custom-made training strategies for accommodating young and elderly. The outcome of this is success in their operations.
Question 7- Main Principles Underpinning Health and Safety Law
Health and safety of employees in workplace is a core area in HR strategies and anchor the manner in which an organisation execute their operations. To support this, CIPD (2024) evidence upto 35.2 million working days ended up being lost to work-linked ill health in years 2022/23. This is with those related to health and safety of the employees accounting for 24 million of these cases. Failure of employers to prioritise on health and safety has directly contributed to wellbeing and management strategies a challenge hence making it to persist. This is evident from the Health and Safety Act 1974 CIPD (2024a) in UK which offers the employers with the ore responsibility of managing their employees, public and different people directly or indirectly impacted by their operations.
Considering Saudi Arabia,………..
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