Promoting the advantages of mature age workers to small and medium-sized businesses was the theme of a highly productive conference in Canberra on 2 December 2005.

DEWR’s Mature Age Strategic Development Team hosted regional providers of the “Wise Workforce” programme, which aims to help small to medium enterprises (SMEs) to:

• Appreciate the impact of Australia’s changing demographics on the supply of labour – and therefore on the potential for their businesses to grow;
• See the employment and retention of mature age workers (those aged 45 and over) as a desirable and productive solution to any skills or labour shortages they experience; and
• Develop the policies and techniques to manage an age-balanced workforce effectively and maximise the bottom-line benefits.

The Wise Workforce programme is part of the Mature Age Employment and Workplace Strategy (MAEWS), announced in the 2004-2005 federal budget and now in its second year of operation.

At the 2 December conference, representatives of the ten current Wise Workforce projects exchanged good practice ideas about engaging SME owners and managers in the issues arising from Australia’s ageing population, and equipping them with the tools to meet the challenge with the best possible outcomes for their own workplace.

Knowledge gained from the conference will be applied as the Wise Workforce service providers conduct a series of workshops, presentations and other events in the first half of 2006.

The regions being served by Wise Workforce providers are listed on this website under the “Employers” tab, along with contact details for those responsible in the provider organisations.

The Australian Government encourages small and medium-sized business people to make contact with the Wise Workforce networks, to discover more about an issue that is likely to impact on their business.