The Work Clinic

  Arthur Dent, hapless hero of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, believed that 42 was the answer to "life, the universe, and everything." But perhaps not quite everything. According to a survey by YouGov, the average at which people feel totally confident and comfortable about their skills at work is 37 - after 30,000 hours in the job .... You'd like to think that they'd got it right by then.

And, more depressing still, we are unlikely to feel fulfilled at work until we hit 50. But, on a more positive note, it seems that Britain's oldies are now more entrepreneurial than ever. So much so that a new word has been coined to describe them - olderpreneurs.

According to the survey,

• 85% of the population do not intend to stop work altogether post retirement age
• 33% want to continue in full-time work post retirement age
• 31% want to carry on in a similar role but on their own terms
• 8% want to start a business in retirement

Commenting on the findings, John Lawson of financial services organisation Standard Life said: " People do not get old like they used to. The Baby Boomers started a trend for redefining what is effectively their 'third age', and these findings point to a continued trend for re-writin the rule book for younger generations."

What they've failed to point out is that, these days, few of us can afford to stop work post-retirement.

Research conducted by free e-mail provider GMX has found that 1 in 3 Britons who use e-mail at work regularly become upset or offended due to misunderstanding what a colleague has written.

The survey of almost 2000 UK workers found that the most common cause for confusion is misinterpretation: in the past year alone, 41% of workers have received an e-mail from a colleague that has used an offensive tone, intentionally or otherwise.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, taking offence at misunderstood e-mails appears (along with so much else ,,,) to decline with age:

• 52% of workers aged 25-34 have taken offence at e-mails, compared to
• 39% between 45-54 years of age

I'm a bit sceptical about the validity of statistics like this. Do 45-year-olds even read their e-mails?! 

Best of all, and somewhat ridiculously, 71% of workers admitted to frequently becoming upset by having to wait for replies to their e-mails. Boo hoo!  

Four out of every 10 UK workers say they will have to work more than half a decade (six years) longer than they had originally planned to retire, according to research conducted by employee risks and benefits experts Aon Consulting.

According to Aon's Employee Omnibus Survey, 64% of workers believe the recession will delay their retirement plans, with one in five (19%) of these envisaging having to work a further six to nine years.

Aon points out that an older workforce will have serious knock-on effects for Britain's employers, including increased costs from salaries, training, pensions and other benefits such as health insurance and wellness programmes. However, the non-financial benefits of retaining older employees ,such as retained knowledge and experience, may far outweigh these financial costs.

Richard Strachan, senior consultant at Aon Consulting says: "There has to be a real discussion in this country about the value older workers bring to the economy, and a shift in the thinking that we have to retire at a certain pre-conceived age. Already governments around the world are shifting the retirement age to later in life to reflect increasing levels of longevity, but employers need to match this with a positive attitude to workers older than the current retirement age.

 
He adds: "As pension savings become more of a hot topic, employers need to ensure, as part of both their ongoing duty of care and an ever increasing focus on plan governance, that they highlight to members how their plans are performing and, perhaps more importantly, why and where they can access up-to-date information.