The Centre for Ageing Better has launched new support to help employers remove age bias from their recruitment processes to maximise the full potential benefits of older workers for organisations.

The project has been delivered with the award-winning social purpose company Behavioural Insights Team, in collaboration with a representative group of employers, recruiters and older workers. The toolkit is also jointly branded by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) and the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC).

Project partners have been helping to design and test the most effective, age-friendly approaches over the past 14 months.

The support builds on the work of the original GROW project which launched in October 2021 and included research into the current and future recruitment landscape for older workers, older workers’ experience of recruitment and how the choice of language used in recruitment materials impacts older workers.

Previous participants in the GROW project include the cross-party think tank Demos, the Institute for Employment Studies and the National Institute for Economic and Social Research (NIESR).

The newly-released recruitment tools are designed to help employers make more age-friendly job adverts, improve their communication around flexible working and deliver interview invitation and scheduling that better suits older workers.

Helping to increase the number of 50+ people returning to work has been a key focus of the government this year but there still remains a significant shortfall with in excess of 200,000 more workers aged 50-64 economically inactive this year than before the pandemic.

John Kiernan, Employer Engagement and Network Manager at the Centre for Ageing Better, said: “Age bias in the recruitment process is incredibly damaging. It locks out older applicants from finding the right job for them but it also means that employers are missing out on a huge talent pool that could help them resolve labour and skills shortages.  

“The new GROW toolkit provides practical help for employers and workers and have been tested thoroughly with 17 businesses and organisations. We hope that the advice we’re making available will help employers, older applicants and ultimately, the UK economy.”  

You can download the toolkit here: