Age Friendly Workplace

From the Government of Canada Seniors website:

A healthy work environment means more productive and engaged employees. An important aspect of creating a healthy work environment is cultivating a workplace culture that embraces and values workers of all ages and abilities, and that includes older workers. Age-friendly workplaces are good for business, and good for employers and employees. Adopting age-friendly recruitment practices that attract applicants over 50 years of age enables employers to draw on a wider pool of talent. Employers that retain older workers are retaining experience, corporate knowledge, productivity and diversity in their workplaces.

Any sized business or workplace can become age-friendly and adopt age-friendly practices.  The website includes a simple self-assessment tool to find out if you offer a workplace that is attractive to older workers.  It includes the following:

• A human resources planning checklist
• A recruitment checklist
• Training and development checklist; and
• Retention checklist.

There are other ways you can make your work-space age-friendly for your clients, besides older staff working there.  These include:

• ground floor accessibility or elevators
• office door(s) easy to open or assisted
• door handles rather than door knobs
• indirect lighting
• seating close to client (not across desk)
• furniture that is easy to get in and out of (firmly padded armchairs rather than plush sofa)
• non-glare paper (ideally pale blue rather than ’90 bright’ white)
• large font (14 Times Roman)
• bowl of reading classes on conference table
• good signage to washrooms and exits
• pocket amplifier available