Employer, work is physically demanding and your workforce is aging

Suppose your employee is 55 years old and has been working for your organization as an Operator on a production line for 30 years. His work consists of supplying and removing raw materials and solving malfunctions with some time pressure, because after all, downtime is loss of production. Despite the fact that the work is physically demanding, your employee has enjoyed performing the work for years. Moreover, he has always done this work. However, slowly but surely you notice that your employee is calling in sick more and more often due to physical complaints. And this applies not only to this employee....

Do you recognize the above problem within your organization? Bart van Loon, labor expert and RADI consultant at Inverzo, runs into this all too often in practice: organizations where employees perform physically demanding work and where the average age of employees is higher. How future-proof is such an organization?

'We will see each other again in the near future'

Van Loon: "The employer of the 55-year-old employee had enlisted Inverzo's help for an occupational health examination. Although the cooperation was pleasant, I came out of the first conversation with this employer with an unpleasant feeling: 'we'll probably see each other again in the near future,' he said." "Unfortunately, more employees did drop out because of physical complaints..."

"And indeed: two weeks after the first conversation with the employer and the employee, I am sitting at the same employer's table. Again, I am dealing with an employee who has been with the organization for a longer period of time, but is no longer able to keep up the work and has performed few other functions... Again, the question is to start an occupational health examination. That's when alarm bells started ringing for me. Isn't this an organizational problem?

How sustainably employable is your organization?

An organization with physically taxing work and with a higher average age of staff may pose a risk for the future if this is not addressed in a timely manner. There are also other factors that influence the future-proofing of the organization and the sustainable employability of employees and employers, such as the financial situation and working conditions. How do you ensure that your organization is and remains future-proof? More importantly, how can you ensure that your employees are and remain healthy and vital despite performing physically demanding work on a daily basis? Tricky questions. Of course, Inverzo can perform an occupational health assessment to identify the employment possibilities of an out-of-work employee. But in the long run, this does not provide the solution. We want to prevent employees from dropping out. Van Loon: "In such a situation, we will have to look at the possibilities of implementing long-term sustainable employability in the organizational policy/strategy at the strategic level."

Within paraDIGMA Group, RADI consultants are the experts when it comes to complex and strategic sustainable employability issues. They are trained by NiDi Bedrijfsopleidingen and work within different labels of paraDIGMA groep. He or she works with the employer to make the organization future-proof again: what is the effect of my policy on sick leave, reintegration and employability? What is the state of working conditions and how do I measure this? What does a future-proof workforce look like?

Van Loon can also officially call himself a RADI advisor since 2019: "I am not only a Labor Expert and a specialist in the field of Man, Work and Income, but also an advisor for the employer and the future sustainability of the organization. This fits well with my work as a Labor Expert. As a RADI advisor, I know how to look at organizations differently and know how to "trigger" employers in conversations to look at the organization the RADI way, namely with an eye to the future. After all, change is the only constant.

Want to know more?

Are you curious about the employee's whole story and how Bart handled the situation? You can read it on the Inverzo website! More information about the RADI advisor and training can be found on the NiDi Bedrijfsopleidingen website.