Working Late Newsletter 5

8/3/2019 Working Late Newsletter 5

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Strategies to enhance productive and healthy environments for the older

workforce

Project Update 5: January 2012

Working Lateis a four year collaborative research project addressing practice

and policy issues associated with later life working. The project is funded by

the New Dynamics of Ageing (NDA) Programme. Working Late is developing

and evaluating interventions and design solutions to promote health and

quality of working life.

The project comprises four interconnected work packages and this project

newsletter includes a summary of developments within those work packages

over the past six months.

New dynamics of later life working

Considerable progress has been made

through collaboration with a range of public

and private sector businesses and

government agencies. To date, 84 interviews

have been completed exploring: experiences

of working and securing work after the age of

50; the impact of the latest legislation on

opportunities for employment; and policies

relating to retirement and age discrimination.

We have spoken to job seekers over 50,

employers, employees over 50 and recently

retired individuals from a range of different

organisations. We are also planning to

conduct a series of expert panels to consider

the policy implications of the findings.

Recruitment has been facilitated by the media

interest in this work (radio and press).

Recruitment is ongoing for employers or linemanagers and job seekers over the age of 50.

Anyone interested in taking part should

contact Ricardo Twumasi on 01509 223 025

or email [email protected]

Analysis of the interview data has just begun,

and we look forward to the opportunity to

publish and present our findings in the coming

year. The BBC has expressed interest in

presenting our findings as part of a

documentary, so we are very excited about

the possibilities for sharing our research

findings with the general public.
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]


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The Journey to Work

A questionnaire survey of employees over the

age of 45, which investigated transport

issues, identified people to interview about

specific difficulties they have regarding their journey to work. To date, interviews have

been conducted with 38 employees and 12

employers, all contributing to a deeper

understanding of the issues and potential

strategies used. Thematic analysis was

conducted on the employee interview

transcripts. These issues were grouped into 5

categories: personal; cost; road network;

transport mode; and employer related.

Difficulties encountered by older workers may

not be very different from any other workers,

so to add to the data, a second survey was

conducted with workers under the age of 45.

Cost was found to be a significant issue for

both the over and under 45s. However, for the

over 45s, cost may have a greater impact on

those wanting to reduce their hours of work in

the stages running up to their retirement. For

example, for those who may work the same

number of days, but want to reduce their

hours, the cost of the commute is static but

income is reduced. Therefore, it is important

to recognise the specific issues raised by

older workers to ensure that their needs and

aspirations are being met. A variety of

strategies are being adopted by older workers

to enable them to make the journey to work

easier and more efficient, for example:

My current job is 4 days a week but the kindof work I do can often be done at home and

because we have a fairly flexible approach to

that here I take advantage of that for at least

1 and sometimes 2 of the 4 days which is a

huge help.

I generally leave home between 9 and

quarter past one of the advantages of flexi-

time to try and take advantage of the lull in

the traffic.

Respondents often cited employer flexibility

as an enabler to later life working, allowing

employees to work from home, have flexi-

time, or reduce hours or responsibilities.

A workshop is being planned with experts,

employer/employee representatives and

policymakers to present the research

findings. We also aim to demonstrate the

beginnings of a resource to share these

stories, potential solutions and inclusive

strategies to support sustainable travel and

well-being.

Attendance at the Parliamentary Advisory

Council for Transport Safety (PACTS)

Conference: Older, Wiser, Safer, the

challenges of an ageing population (13

October 2011) has already raised interest in

involvement in this workshop.

This research was presented at the Include

Conference at the Royal College of Art in

London, April 2011, and at the Gerontological

Society of America's 64th Annual Scientific

Meeting in Boston, November 2011.

Interventions to promote health and

workability

The research team have completed the first

set of health screening visits (6 month follow

up) for all 10 participating sites during

summer 2011. From the 1119 employees

who were originally recruited into the

research, 405 employees returned to visit the

team. This is an excellent response rate

given the organisational changes some sites

have experienced during this turbulenteconomic climate. Since November 2011 we

have been collecting data for the second set

of revisits and this will be complete by

February 2012.


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It has been an enriching experience for the

team to see so many participants return and

provide examples of how the health screening

has encouraged them take action to improve

their health. Therefore, to supplement the

quantitative data collected through the healthscreenings, the research team have also

conducted 59 interviews with individual

participants. These interviews will allow the

team to assemble real case study examples

of how the intervention may have impacted

the lives of our participants:

A lot of my time involves sitting at my desk at

a PC so I try to make a bit of a conscious

effort to go a bit further. So rather than going

to the loo which is ten yards around thecorner I go to the one which is up a flight of

stairs and so forces you to stretch your legs.

And the pedometer Ive also started wearing it

when Im cycling which shows Im thinking

more about my activity levels. Male, 46.

Walking Lunch

During the final three months of the physicalactivity intervention period, the research team

implemented the Walking Lunch initiative in

six of our participating sites. Walking Lunch

involves placing a large map (1 metre

diameter) in a communal area of a site. The

map has a radius of 1.5 km and displays the

surrounding areas of each office. The basic

idea of the map is to encourage employees to

use their lunchtime breaks for a local walk.

Employees can get to an area on the map,

take a photo on their mobile phone or digital

camera, and come back to the office to print

out that photo and pin it to the map using

tags. The tags also have space for employees

to record the number of steps taken to get to

the location in the image (via their Working

Late pedometers) and any other relevant

information.

We have been able to assess the use of the

Walking Lunch maps during our twelve month

follow up health screenings. The maps have

been widely used in the majority of our sites.

One site in particular has embraced the

initiative and has used the Walking Lunch

map to create a number of local walks with

supplementary leaflets provided for all staff.

Ageing productively through design

The OWL project has continued to gather

momentum following the success of the

survey to examine how design impacts on

healthy working. The survey covered 21

companies generating a sample of 719.

Following the survey, 26 triangulation

interviews were conducted with five

collaborator companies. For each company,

discussion documents were then prepared

and the survey and interview findings

presented to management.

Phase 2 has involved in-depth data collection

to understand job tasks in detail; the Half-a-

day in the life of study was made up of

ergonomics observations, objective data and

in-depth interviews, followed by focus

groups/workshops.


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Our collaborations have successfully

continued with 4 of the companies;

unfortunately, 1 had to withdraw due to

organisational changes. We are now working

on job tasks with 4 companies in 3 industries;

construction, manufacturing and care work.

Data collection was mindful of the differentwork tasks and environments. For example,

with joiners we looked at the impact of using

hand tools on health and comfort when

sawing, drilling/driving and hammering/fixing.

With construction we have observed the work

practices and environments of the mobile-

office staff, who work both on the site and in

temporary office/desk space which are not

necessarily designed around their needs.

Objective measurements across all

companies included anthropometry toevaluate body sizes/shapes; REBA (Rapid

Entire Body Assessments) to understand

working postures in confined spaces.

Following the Half-a-day in the life of

data collection in the each company, focus

groups were held where co-design and user-

centred design ideas/solutions were

explored. The focus groups centred on the

needs of the users and their specific job/work

tasks. To aid the discussion and co-design

process, artefacts were produced, these

included; action cards, product cards and

body cards, as well as blank cards

participants could draw on. These tools will

also form part of our OWL resource.

In 2011 we presented at 2 international

conferences. One paper was also accepted for a

journal and will be available in 2012. One of our

Undergraduate Ergonomics students, EsmeShanley, won the Major Practice in Ergonomics

Award (W. Jahns Award 2011) for her

dissertation looking into the design requirements

for Animal Care workers. Dr. Elaine Williams

won a runner-up prize for her poster at the

Research Conference based on work at the

Cement Manufacturers. Three conference

papers have been accepted for 2012.

Other news and events

In January 2012, Dr. Myanna Duncan presented

at the Division of Occupational Psychology

Conference, delivering a talk on Work Package

3.1, the Occupational Health context. The

presentation generated a good deal of media

interest, with the research being cited on over 65

websites and, indeed, on BBC Radio 2. The

media were particularly interested with data

obtained regarding how much people sit. Furtherdetails are available to view at the following sites:

http://bbc.in/x0M4qK http://bit.ly/Ae9pa1
http://bbc.in/x0M4qKhttp://bbc.in/x0M4qK

Working Late Newsletter 5

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