UK GOVERNMENT WANT RETIREES BACK AT WORK

By Tim Cullimore

Towards the end of last year, 2022, I was fortunate enough to see in concert my all-time favourite rock band, Roxy Music. 50 years after seeing them for the first time as a young teenager I was so excited to see the four stalwarts of the group who have been a constant presence throughout their history.

I was especially excited to witness the power of the Great Paul Thompson who has been the Roxy Music drummer for 50 years, and at 72 years of age is still playing for 2 hours in front of 20, 000 fans. So no early retirement for these guys, it seems that there is no upper age limit for rock musicians, but one or two generations ago being 72 was synonymous with being really old, and certainly past working age.

Coincidently the U.K. government is asking for those people who have taken early retirement to return to the work force, “Leave the golf course and get back to the office” as one condescending politician put it. The shortage of skilled workers is a very real problem here in the U.K., in large part down to Brexit (as a dual passport holding committed European you can guess my thoughts on this subject) but speaking with colleagues from all parts of Europe this seems to be a common theme.

The ageing population is having a drastic effect on all our nations’ finances, and some companies especially in retail, are actively targeting more mature employees. I still regret that one of my choices to join my sales team when I was in the supply side of our industry was vetoed because the candidate was judged to be boring and not dynamic enough. You can read that as him being too far down his career path.

To take the example of gaming dealer jobs, if you look at the employment websites for all the major corporate casino operators in England, Scotland and Wales you will see opportunities for dealer positions on all of them, both trainee and experienced positions, but nowhere will you see that they would welcome applications fromapplicants who are retired or perhapsmiddle aged or older, and that special dispensations will be made to accommodate this particular demographic.

Working in Montreal for Lotto Quebec opened my eyes to making sure everyone had a chance of success at work regardless of their individual requirements. Perhaps more time needs to be given getting to and from the staff room for breaks. Perhaps more importance needs to be given to more frequent comfort breaks and thought given to the appropriateness of the uniforms.

I recognise that I am speaking from a position where I have a lot of career to look back on and rather less in front of me, and it is true that employees with great experience have more patience but perhaps less time in front of them, but surely patience and understanding are fundamentals when working in a gaming environment, especially as a stronger focus is given to social responsibility and player protection.

Let us, as an industry reach out to those who wish to stay in the workforce, after all, they will be flexible and with no childcare needs, and it is unlikely that they will be partying too hard before the start of their shift.