BENEFITS AND ADVICE TO EMPLOYERS, MANAGERS AND HUMAN RESOURCE PERSONNEL Re: Over 40 Workers (Older Workers)
Employed Over 40s 1. The proportion of Older Workers in the working population is increasing daily. This is due to the lower birth rate, the longer period of training, academic and vocational, youth are taking, and the great advances made by medicine and medical services. 2. Thus retention of Older Workers is a must. 3. Retain your Older Workers. It pays if you tap their very good qualities. 4. Appreciate and put to your good use the very good qualities of the Older Workers namely: Maturity Responsibility Experience Loyalty & Reliability Continuity Expertise Training investment Dedication Discipline Acceptance of authority Managerial ability Less sporadic leave off work Better customer care especially in the retail trade Adaptability
5. Believe and invest in the three LLLs i.e. Life Long Learning of your staff. It will give you a very good return in your profits. 6. Train and retrain your Older Workers to help them adapt their experiences to modern technology, new management techniques and new skills.
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7. Invest in your employees: make literate the illiterate ones, make computer literate those who are not. Re-skill the unskilled. 8. Use the Older Workers as Mentors to train new, young and old recruits. 9. Make your place of work and your work methods ergonomic i.e. study the relationship between your workers and their environment. Change things to make it easier for them to remain working as long as possible. 10. Change and adapt their physical work environment to their wishes and production requirements. 11. Introduce flexi-time provided that they give the expected hours of work. 12. Introduce job rotation to improve their skills. Job rotation makes work less monotonous and workers more flexible on the job, especially if a move is required as a result of a change in demand for your firm’s product. Job sharing is also helpful. 13. Do not introduce early retirement schemes but rationalise and retrain your employees in-house or out-source training. Experience, maturity and responsibility pay! 14. Introduce Telework. Trust your affidable workers and have some work done at home. It will save on your costs. 15. Visit your workers on the job every now and then. Show them that you care about what they are doing and the difficulties they are meeting. See their work and talk to them on it. Show appreciation for their efforts. They will return your concern by feeling happier at work and producing more.
Unemployed Over 40s 1. Give them a chance, send for them for interviews, and see what they know. They should not be discriminated against just because of their age. 2. Age and sexual discrimination is against the law. There should be no discrimination based on age or sex when it comes to recruitment, employment, training, promotion, retirement and conditions of work. Equal pay for work of equal value should always be the rule.
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3. A lot of money has been spent in the past on the training of Older Workers. Tap on that past investment and use to your advantage. 4. An Older Worker is less likely to hop off to another job. He is more loyal to his firm if he manages to be recruited. His continuity on the job is more likely as he has family responsibilities which make him think twice. 5. Give an Older Worker a chance to show his experience in managing, people and materials. 6. An Older Worker is a more responsible and reliable worker. He/she accepts authority and is more dedicated and disciplined. 7. Statistics show that Older Workers take less sporadic leave off work and are more customer-friendly. Recruit them. 8. Be courageous and give another chance to those who have made a mistake in life of breaking the law or abusing of illicit substances and are sorry for what they have done. Who has not made a mistake in life? 9. Disabled persons and those who have health problems, have other good qualities too. Find what they are good at and give them a chance. 10. Help yourself, us and the economy in general by employing Older Workers regularly. Fill in their engagement form and send it to the ETC on the first working day as per Legal Notice 110/93. Withhold and pay their NI weekly contribution. Do not employ them irregularly. 11. Be reminded that employers caught employing foreign workers irregularly, besides being prosecuted and fined, are also black-listed and will not be able to tender for government contracts. Higher fines are in the pipeline for employing workers irregularly, whether local or foreign. 12. Pay Older Workers a just wage and give them other decent conditions of work. The National Minimum Wage (NMW) is only a limit below which you should not pay. It is not the maximum pay. A just wage offered should reflect qualifications, experience and knowledge of the job in question. 13. If you employ Older Workers part-time, particularly female, give them their due according to the Employment and Industrial Relations Act 2002. If you employ them for 20 hours or more they are entitled to Pro Rata Benefits were allowances, bonuses and all types of leave are concerned. Do not abuse of their services. 14. Some Maltese unemployed Older Workers believe that some employers are abusively using (exploiting) the hardship of illegal migrants by employing them
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either illegally or at very low conditions of work which no Maltese worker would accept. 15. There are many women returnees to the labour force. Encourage this influx by offering flexible hours of work, child care facilities and lawful conditions of parttimework. 16. Acknowledge job applications and notify applicants of the filling of job vacancies. It is good etiquette by an employer and is expected by the applicants. 17. When you ask ETC to help you fill job vacancies, please send a clear job description, duties and qualifications expected. Be just and fair in your appraisal of applicants. Do not expect to be sent a know-all, do-all registrant. ETC appreciates your feedback after interviews. 18. The relevant Laws and Regulations you should consult to be a good employer are: EIRA – Employment and Industrial Relations Act, (See FAQ on Conditions of Work on the Over 40s Section of this Website), EMWA - Equality for Man and Women Act, SSA - Social Security Act and ITA – Income Tax Act, together with other relevant Legal Notices. 19. Make use of ETC Schemes meant to help disadvantaged groups find employment. Such Schemes are financially advantageous to the employer and the employee, like: TEES-Training and Employment Exposure Scheme (Over 40s) (Expired) ETPS-Employment and Training Placement Scheme (Expired) RS-Redeployment Scheme WSS-Work Start Scheme (Suspended) BTG-Bridging the Gap (for ex-convicts and ex-substance abusers), SEC-Supported Employment Scheme (for the disabled), and INT-Iftah Negozju Tieghek (Open your Own Business). N.B. a) See ‘Statistics and Information’ on ‘The Over 40s Section’ of the ETC website for details of these Schemes. b) In the case of TEES, the whole wage was subsidised from EU/Govn. Funds. In many of the other cases at least half the National Minimum Wage is subsidised by the ETC provided employers follow an approved training programme. The duration of the subsidy may vary from 3 to 12 months.
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c) The above Schemes are at the moment being rationalised and changes are in the offing. Victor Mifsud Officer-in-charge, Programme Over 40s, Employment Services Division, ETC Hal Far. Monday 11th June 2007.
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