Staff diversity is beneficial

By ADAM GIFFORD

A leading recruitment specialist says the refusal of many employers to take on older workers or people from different cultures is having a damaging economic effect.

A survey conducted for the Equal Employment Opportunities Trust (EEO Trust) found 80 per cent of recruitment professionals had first-hand experience of appropriately qualified people being rejected because of age, not having a New Zealand accent, being from a different culture or being physically disabled.

Stuart Bennett, from Morgan and Banks Technology, says he has come across instances where people with talent and experience are not picked up, and the job remains unfilled.

"In a lot of cases it is because employers have unreal expectations of what they would get from a candidate-short market," Mr Bennett says.

"The smart ones will take on someone who may speak accented English but have the technical capacity, then spend money on bringing their English to scratch.

"Leaving jobs vacant isn't helping the economy."

He says often older people are not hired because employers wrongly assume they will not be able to keep learning.

"If we look to the American market there is a reverse swing to older senior executives and the trend is following through to Australia."

Companies are also trying "reverse mentoring," where an older worker is teamed up with a younger one who can help them bridge the skills gap into an e-commerce environment.

Manpower general manager Lincoln Crawley says the growth opportunities in the economy are in areas like call centres, where managers are younger.

"They've normally grown up in the call-centre industry so they're not open to employing older, more experienced people," Mr Crawley says.

Younger people are seen as being more flexible about job practices and available to do more hours.

Often the way younger managers motivate their staff doesn't suit the lifestyles of older workers.

Mr Crawley says people can become unemployable if they stop investing in themselves.

"The biggest asset anyone has is themselves, the way they present, they way they make sure their skill levels and networks are current. Those who fall by the wayside are those who blame age discrimination."

Mr Crawley says Manpower is reviewing its own staffing to bring in more experience. It wants to get the message out to employers there is an untapped work force out there for those willing to invest in training and smarter selection processes, such as psychometric testing.

EEO Trust executive director Trudie McNaughton says recruiters say they feel compromised or embarrassed by discrimination, especially when they must cover for a client's illegal discrimination while giving feedback to a candidate whose self-esteem is being eroded by each rejection.

"If a recruiter's client doesn't have good managers and a good workplace culture it's difficult for the consultant to overcome those barriers."

She says employers who don't wise up to the benefits of a diverse and tolerant workforce could struggle to attract the best staff in a tight market.