Meet our new Age Inclusivity Group
Tuesday, 26th March 2024Meet our new Age Inclusivity Group
pro-manchester are delighted to introduce our newly formed Age Inclusivity Group – dedicated to supporting individuals and businesses in coping with the challenges and issues around multigenerational workforces and creating age inclusive workplaces. They would love you to join them for their inaugural event on 14th May (read on for full details)
Their mission is:
• To inform and educate on the impact demographic change is having on society and the labour market. Particularly on how organisations can adapt to an ageing workforce to harness the power of multigenerational teams as a driver for business growth.
• To understand how demographic change is influencing consumer behaviour.
• To be a resource for companies to share best practices on how to foster an age inclusive workplace that is attractive to workers of all ages.
• To promote Manchester as an age friendly city and support the work of other organisations such as Pride in Ageing/the DWP/GMCA Ageing Hub
• To collaborate with other pro-manchester EDI sub-committees to address intersectional EDI issues.
If you are interested in getting involved in any of our age inclusivity events or activities, we would love to hear from you. We are always keen to engage with people from a variety of backgrounds, with interesting stories to tell, so please don’t hesitate to get in touch with our age inclusivity Committee Manager, Rachel Tetlow
Alastair Swindlehurst – EZHR
Alastair is the Founder of EZHR, a HR subscription solution for SMEs that wants to lower the barrier of entry to really good advice.
Prior to that, he spent 15 years working in-house for various Blue Chip FMCG and manufacturing businesses along with a number of global BPO organisations. His work was across various areas of specialism including employee relations, organisational change, development, TUPE, and business disposal.
With the work he has done with EZHR, he is seeing a significant shift in the workplace and feels that employers need better support to facilitate this shift. The workplace has truly evolved and the lack of financial freedom for many is forcing people to work longer, but we should be focusing on supporting every person at each level.
Mike Mansfield – ProAge
Mike is the CEO of ProAge. He is a seasoned thought leader on the topics of longevity, age-inclusion and multigenerational workplaces.ProAge is a UK charity dedicated to creating age-inclusive workplaces and high-performing multigenerational teams.Mike has been responsible for the establishment of the Aegon Center for Longevity and Retirement. While working at Aegon, Mike authored and published 13 reports on retirement security with insights and recommendations for governments, employers and individuals. He also developed and piloted the Silver Starters program to help people age 50+ understand if entrepreneurship is something for them and help them start their own business.
Donna Smith – Grant Thornton
As People & Culture Director at professional services firm Grant Thornton, Donna is passionate about enabling people to do what they love, and creating workplace cultures where everyone can thrive. A previous co-chair of the Pro Manchester ethnicity committee, as a parent to young children and an only child with ageing parents, Donna is committed to age inclusivity and has a keen interest in attraction and retention of multi-generational talent. Alongside her day job Donna is a coach, facilitator, keen runner and yoga amateur, and fan of family camping adventures.
David Carmichael – Fieldfisher
David is a partner in the Employment and Pensions team of Fieldfisher based in the Manchester office. He is an employment law specialist with over thirty years’ experience advising HR professionals and their teams, business owners, senior leadership teams and executives. The problems he has advised on include shareholder disputes, health and safety related people issues, restrictive covenant enforcement unfair dismissal and discrimination claims,”
Abby Mercer – Kuits
Abby is a trainee solicitor and has worked as a paralegal for several years prior to this. Having worked in the legal sector she has seen the importance of all ages being included and inclusive within a law firm and how this can improve both work and enjoyment of the workplace when achieved successfully.
Rubina Alam – TLT Solicitors
Ruby is an Associate Solicitor in Weightmans’ litigation team, she deals with a broad range of corporate and commercial disputes and ensures her clients are put at ease throughout their case. Away from the office Ruby is a keen baker and enjoys trying out new bars and restaurants in Manchester. Ruby also loves yoga and bouldering and regularly attends yoga classes in the city.
Paul Clayton – BNY Mellon
I work in BNYM Technology Service Group as a product owner for Enterprise messaging which Powers a 5th of the world financial transactions each day. The best part of my life at BNYMellon is the “Belonging and Inclusion” Lead for Manchester. Last year we put on 50 DEI events for over 2000 employees,
I also represent the company on the “Diversity Equality and Inclusion” Board of Pro-Manchester, the largest business organisation in the North of the UK.
Outside of work I help run a “Community award winning” Men’s Mental Health and anti-Suicide Charity : https://andysmanclub.co.uk/who-we-are which helps men talk and open up about any Storms they are going through.
In addition, this year I challenged myself in a “generational” way and went outside my comfort zone and have to release Experimental music on the Main Streaming Platforms(Spotify, YouTube, Deezer, Amazon Music, Apple music ….) as the artist “Paul In the 5Hort5
First Age Inclusivity Event
A Multigenerational Workforce: Mapping the Way Forward
Employers find the topic of preparing for an ageing workforce very important, scoring it seven out of 10, yet do not feel they are strategically prepared, scoring it four out of 10. This is one of the key findings of research done by two charities ProAge and Brave Starts in a survey they conducted last summer.
Join us on May 14th for a workshop to learn more about the what organisations have been doing and their plans going forward to create a more age inclusive, multigenerational workforce. By joining us, you will meet people from other organisations with a shared interest in the topic and together we will be working on practical solutions to attract and retain older workers.
This workshop is part of a series we will be holding around the country to collect input, so that we can write a report for policy makers with implementable recommendations from employers. Other workshops have been and will be held in London, Cardiff, Edinburgh and Birmingham.