The federal government has pledged $30 million over the next three years so that 7500 mature-aged workers with trade relevant skills but no formal qualifications can have those skills recognised, in an effort to improve mobility and retention.

Workers from the construction, manufacturing, electricity, gas, water and waste services are being targeted through the More Help for Mature Age Workers initiative and grants are available through the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations.

Bob Paton, chief executive of Manufacturing Skills Australia, says the initiative will help recognise the experience of some of the 43 per cent of workers within the manufacturing sector who don’t hold a post-school qualification.

“Mature-aged workers have a wealth of experience and knowledge gained over their working [lives] – it’s almost invaluable in many instances, and if somehow they can be retained and act as supporters and mentors and assistants to those coming into the workforce, the benefits to the enterprise are really quite significant,” Paton says.

“I think as an initiative and focus on mature-aged people, it’s really good. There’s clearly a need to retain workers in any industry, because we’ve got the generational change and in the next five years we’re going to see a significant retirement rate of baby boomers onwards, and the numbers coming in are just not going to match those retiring.”

“There’ll be the problem of losing individuals from the workforce, but the other problem is there’s greater pressure on people for a range of reasons to actually stay in the workforce and retain an earning capacity,” he says. “Many employees are looking to either move into jobs that may not be as physically demanding, or perhaps they’ve been displaced and their jobs are under threat and they’ll be looking to see ‘where can I go now and what can I do?’ “

The Australian Industry Group published a report earlier this year titled Investing in Experience which highlights benefits to employers of hiring and retaining workers over 45 years of age.

The report points out that mature-aged workers can deliver an average net benefit of $1956 a year to their employer compared to other workers due to lower rates of absenteeism, high retention rates, decreased recruitment costs and greater return on their investment.

The report highlights a study by Australian Health Management which studied the daily work habits of 4000 employees and found that workers aged 55 and older performed at their best for approximately seven out of the eight hours in a working day.

It also found that, according to the rates of labour mobility, available through the Australian Bureau of Statistics, workers aged over 55 are five times less likely to change jobs compared with workers aged 20-24.

Paton believes recognising the skills and experience of mature-aged workers in the manufacturing sector is particularly vital in a situation where a plant or company need to close its doors for business.

“It’s vital when people’s jobs may be in jeopardy, certainly in manufacturing, where I don’t think we’ve seen the end of closures,” he says.

“These employees have been providing valuable service to the employer and [if], for whatever reason, that employer can no longer continue in business, it would be such a [tragedy] to lose those people altogether when we are facing skills shortages in many areas.”

Mark Spyker from the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union sees programs such as this recent initiative making a real difference for manufacturing workers, particularly those who may have lost their jobs recently in the auto industry.

“The problem is that you could be working somewhere for 30 years, gained a whole lot of skills and knowledge but never have formally been to school or TAFE, and you’re made redundant and leave that place and you’ve got nothing to show other than your r aacsum aac,” he says.

“We negotiate with the company and the TAFE system and they do a ‘recognition of prior learning’ for the workers and that turns their skills set into nationally accredited certificates.”

Spyker finds that many of the women who have been working for years in the manufacturing sector often use the redundancy period to change careers completely, and many undertake bridging courses in food and hospitality, aged care or child care.

“We can’t slot them back into the automotive sector at the moment because of what’s happening in manufacturing, but what we can do is give them a different career path, we can help if they don’t want to stay in manufacturing any more,” he says.

Through these programs Spyker is able to help mature-aged workers have their experience recognised through TAFE, without having to enrol in lengthy courses. “To do a certificate III in manufacturing could be up to 800 hours of school, which is often difficult to consider when you’re over 45, so this way they can tie that certificate III to their r aacsum aac and then go and look for a job,” he says, with the qualification making it easier to find employment. .

PLEASED TO PASSS ON HIS SKILLS
ROY Owen worked for 50 years as a plasterer in Australia and New Zealand, eventually setting up his own business, before a slowdown in his trade forced him to reinvent himself as a TAFE teacher of plastering.

The move came gradually after Owen had enrolled in a TAFE course to refresh his knowledge on basic trades in the hope of making a sideways move into the home handyman business. During this time he was asked to fill in a position at TAFE and teach a class of young plasterers.

For Owen, this move was a gateway to a new profession at the age of 63 and a way of transitioning out of the demanding physical work of being a plasterer.

Through the More Help for Mature Age Workers initiative, Owen was able to have his decades of plastering experience turned into a formal qualification after a skills assessor from a registered training organisation observed him on the job.

He then undertook a certificate IV in training and education through TAFE to gain the qualifications to teach plastering to his students on the Gold Coast, which he admits was more of a challenge.

“The teaching course is really hard because I’ve never done anything with computers,” he says. “Now I’m trying to explain plastering to these students, and even though I’ve done it for 50 years and do it naturally, I need to learn how to pass on this knowledge.”

“It does feel like I’ve come full circle from the days of my apprenticeship, but if you don’t keep a trade going and up-to-date, it dies out, which is a real shame. I’ve got so many ideas and things I can do that a lot of plasterers wouldn’t know [about].”

He now has no thoughts of retiring soon and would like to teach plastering at a new trade school in Murgon, Queensland, and faux finishing at TAFE on the Gold Coast. “It really helps working with young people, I feel 10 years younger,” he says

Source:The Australian

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