BT: 2009 AARP International Innovative Employer Awards

By: AARP.org | Source: AARP.org | September 2009

Winning Years: 2008, 2009
Industry: Communications
Location: London, United Kingdom
Web: http://www.btplc.com
 
Highlights of 2009 Winning Strategies

Through its Achieving the Balance portfolio, BT offers a wide variety of flexible-work arrangements that have proven beneficial to older employees in making the transition from full-time employment to retirement. In addition, BT’s Career Life Planning Tool assists employees in developing their careers at every stage and has helped older employees adapt to life changes that take place during employment.

Additional Policies and Practices
 
Lifelong Learning and Training: BT Group has a Career Life Planning tool that covers every stage of an individual’s career with BT. This tool recognizes that employees’ career plans and lives outside work change over time, and it helps individuals and managers work together to understand how they can plan for such changes, and how they can create appropriate development strategies.
 
In 2009, BT also held a trial run of its pre-retirement course to 200 employees, mostly age 50 and above, delivered by its partner J.P. Morgan Investment. The course helps employees think about retirement-related lifestyle changes and provides information on the BT pension and retirement plans, state benefits, and tax planning.
 
Flexible-Work Arrangements: BT offers a wide variety of flexible-working arrangements to all its employees. The arrangements include part-time work options, compressed hours, job sharing, working from home, and more. 14,500 employees now work from home, and 75,000 work flexibly in some way. BT’s own research shows that this has improved productivity and reduced sick absence and employee turnover.  
 
BT packages its flexible and agile working policies in a program portfolio titled “Achieving the Balance.” This portfolio outlines the different options that are available to help people find the most suitable working arrangements for their individual circumstances. A component of this portfolio includes options for the transition from full-time employment to retirement.
 
The “Achieving the Balance” portfolio includes several opportunities that, although available to everyone in BT, are particularly useful to older people. They include the following:

• Wind Down – Giving employees more personal time
• Step Down – Moving to roles with less responsibility and less stress
• Time Out – Providing career breaks and sabbaticals for up to two years  
• Helping Hands – Allowing “secondments,” or loaning the services of a BT employee to a charity for up to two years  
• Ease Down – Gradually reducing the level of responsibility while continuing work for BT

 
Health Promotion and Protection: BT promotes physical and mental well-being through a framework of primary, secondary, and tertiary interventions. Primary interventions include engagement in health-promotion activities, such as Work Fit. Secondary interventions provide early assistance, such as counseling, when problems arise. Tertiary intervention is rehabilitation after illness and/or taking advice from specialists.
 
The Work Fit program has focused on several different areas of health and well-being, which, although they affect all employees, affect people over 50 in increasing numbers. BT has also positively promoted a mental well-being awareness program under the banner of “Positive Mentality.” The goal of this initiative is to bust some of the myths associated with mental illness and treatment and to increase overall awareness.
 
The “Passport” initiative features a document that an employee can complete at his or her own pace and in his or her own style describing any special work or personal circumstances or requirements. This might include whom to contact in an emergency, activities that he or she would prefer not to take part in, possible effects of medications, or simplified procedures for reporting that he or she does not feel able to come into work. This is then shared with the line manager, who does not relinquish responsibility for the individual until the Passport has been used to fully brief and hand over to the new manager. This, in turn, makes it easier for the individual to move around the business, performing different jobs but without having to keep explaining their circumstances to new supervisors.

All employees have access to the employee assistance program, which offers up to four free counseling sessions to discuss a variety of issues, including health. BT believes this program particularly benefits the older worker.
 
Diversity Promotion: BT has developed a number of initiatives to promote diversity in relation to attraction, recruitment, promotion, and training. With respect to age diversity, BT promotes mixed-age teams and initiatives supporting effective work among different age groups.

BT has a Global Equality & Diversity Forum in which  senior executives from different divisions of the business are jointly responsible for delivering the company’s diversity strategy.

Externally, BT is a member of a number of recognized external benchmarking organizations, such as the Employers Forum on Age. The company maintains close links to TAEN (The Age and Employment Network), ILC (International Longevity Centre), and Age Concern, which BT involves specifically in product development through its Age and Inclusion Team.

BT abolished its normal retirement age in 2005. As a consequence, it now has more than 2,000 workers over age 60. Of its workforce, 32 percent are over 50.

Recruitment: BT’s recruitment procedures are completely age-neutral. The company seeks to recruit from every age range. BT’s graduate and apprentice schemes no longer include any age limit. BT’s preferred recruitment suppliers are contractually committed to providing “diverse shortlists” for all vacancies, in which “diverse” includes a wide age demographic.
 
Miscellaneous: BT has for many years been using award programs to honor employees who have long histories with the company. In addition, BT has developed programs to help elderly customers overcome the digital divide, including the “Internet Rangers Program.”