Old gold
The image of beautiful young things dressed in Armani dominates the industry, but hospitality's love affair with youth cannot continue. According to lobby group Employers Forum on Age, the age profile of UK workers is changing. Thirty-five per cent of the labour force is aged 45 and over, and by 2010 this proportion will have risen to 40%, leaving just 17% made up of 16- to 24-year-olds. So where is the next tranche of beautiful young things to come from?
"The 24-35 age group is the favourite age group of employers, but they are in rapid decline," says Freda Line, development manager of the Employers Forum on Age (EFA), which has more than 170 members to date, including Whitbread, Granada and McDonald's. "The industry has to change its attitude to employing older workers."
Despite such warnings, employers seem determined to discriminate when it comes to age. The number of people between the ages of 50 and 65 who are not working has doubled in the past 10 years. There are now 2.8 million people fit to work who have withdrawn from the employment market. Hospitality's share of these unoccupied individuals represents brigades of experienced chefs, hundreds of hotel managers, and thousands of waiters and bar staff. The loss to an industry crippled by skills shortages is profound.
"Hospitality is undoubtedly ageist," says Chris Sheppardson, managing director of Chess Partnership, a recruitment consultancy. "It has a lot to do with image, with employers stating they want a young, vibrant person for the job. That's ageist straight away. But it is a social issue. We held a series of focus groups with 135 managers recently, and they blamed the public's demand for being served by someone who looks good, rather than just being good at their job."
Hospitality certainly isn't alone in its ageism - it is a problem ingrained in all industries. A recent survey carried out for the Department for Education and Employment (DfEE) revealed that 78% of unemployed people in the 50-65 age group believed that their age counted against them. Earlier this year, the Government commissioned the Performance and Innovation Unit (PIU) of the Cabinet Office to look at the implications of the sharp decline in the number of people working in their 50s and 60s.
The findings of the report, Winning the Generation Game, are harrowing. More than one-third of this age group are not working, at a cost to the UK economy of £16b in lost gross domestic product and £3b-£5b in extra benefits and lost taxes.
It also found that the majority of those not working were doing so unwillingly - fewer than one in three had decided to retire early out of choice.
"This represents a shocking waste of talent, energy, commitment and experience," says Margaret Hodge, Minister for Employment and Equal Opportunities.
But the Government's attempts so far to snuff out such discrimination have been woolly. Under pressure from age discrimination lobbying groups, it published a code of practice on age diversity last year. Yet it failed to publicise the guidelines adequately. Within three months of the code's introduction, most employers had forgotten it existed, and many missed its publication completely.
In an EFA survey in September 1999, three in 10 employers had never heard of a Government code on ageism; fewer than one in 10 intended to make any changes in the way they recruited and trained; and 68% said that a code would make no difference to the way they ran their businesses.
A further study by the DfEE last month revealed continued ignorance. Awareness of the code of practice, it reported, is currently low among employers and older people.
The British Hospitality Association (BHA) has recognised the need for increased employer awareness. "The code failed to strike a spark the first time round," says Martin Couchman, the BHA's deputy chief executive. "There were so many other things going on. But we are in talks with the CBI about boosting awareness."
Both the CBI and the BHA are aware that the alternative to the code is legislation, one of the key recommendations of the Cabinet Office's Winning the Generation Game report. Meanwhile, the Government is keeping a close eye on the adoption of the code. Hodge emphasises the Government's intent to see the changes through. "It takes time to change attitudes towards age prejudice," she says, "but the Government is determined to make that culture change happen."
The BHA and others in the industry are opposed to further legislation. "More regulation would be terrible," says Trevor Ward, joint managing director of Tri Hospitality Consulting. "The industry needs to be free to employ who it wants."
But even if the organisations and employers manage to block legal moves to outlaw ageism, they may not be able to stop Europe. The European Commission is currently reviewing a draft directive on discrimination at work which would include ageism. "Legislation is coming," says the EFA's Line.
Whether the industry voluntarily accepts change or has change forced on it by the Government or Europe, the benefits of valuing older workers could be huge for an industry crippled by a skills shortage. "There is such wastage caused by ageism," says Line. "Workers over 50 bring stability, experience and maturity. They save on recruitment costs and they can bring customer care skills."
Age diversity is clearly on the Government's agenda and it wants to see it on hospitality's agenda.
But that doesn't mean that the image-conscious view of the industry must end. Age need not be a block to looking the part in a fancy restaurant.
Details on the code of practice are available on the DfEE Web site - www.dfee.gov.uk - and Winning the Generation Game can be accessed on www.cabinet-office.gov.uk/innovation
Age diversity in employment: a code of practice
The code covers good practice in six aspects of the employment cycle:
Recruitment: recruit on the basis of skills and abilities needed to do the job.
Selection: select on merit by focusing on application-form information about skills and abilities, and on performance at interview.
Promotion: base promotion on the ability or demonstrated potential to do the job.
Training and development: encourage all employees to take advantage of relevant training opportunities.
Redundancy: base decisions on objective, job-related criteria to ensure that the skills needed to help the business are retained.
Retirement: ensure that retirement schemes are fairly applied, taking individual and business needs into account.
Source: Department for Education and Employment
The problem of ageism
In the past 20 years, the proportion of men between 50 and state pension age who are not working has doubled.
One-third of men and women in this age range, 2.8 million people, are now not working.
Almost half receive most of their income from state benefits.
Only one-third of the fall in employment rates arises from people freely deciding to retire early.
The total economic cost is high. The drop in work rates among the over-50s since 1979 costs the economy about £16b a year in lost GDP, and costs the public purse £3b-£5b in extra benefits and lost taxes.
The problem could get worse. With present employment rates, one million extra over-50s would be not working by 2020, because of rising numbers of older people in the population. There will be two million fewer working-age people under the age of 50, a shift equivalent to nearly 10% of the total working population.
Source: Winning the Generation Game
Source: Caterer & Hotelkeeper magazine, 27 July - 2 August 2000
