The research found just under two thirds (63%) of employers expect the age profile of their workforce to change over time, with just 26% not expecting any direct impact.
These findings reflect the fact that employers can no longer force an employee to retire purely on the grounds of age alone, and are now instead dependent on the employee making an active decision to retire.
This decision is often triggered by there being sufficient pension savings in place to provide a comfortable income in retirement.
Jelf points to the widely discussed UK savings gap, and recent DWP figures, as evidence that many employees do not have anywhere near adequate private pension provision. As such, many may still be reliant on the extra pension provided by the state pension to underpin their retirement income. But with SPA now set to continue increasing automatically, the retirement income trigger is being pushed to an ever-higher age.
The reality is that many employees will simply not be able to afford to retire, and will have to continue to work much later in life. This has significant implications for UK employers.
Steve Herbert, head of benefits strategy for Jelf Employee Benefits, said: "To avoid workforce stagnation employers may need to take a much more proactive stance in encouraging their employees towards making adequate retirement savings. This will mean much greater levels of guidance, steerage, and promotion of the benefits of pension savings, possibly together with higher levels of employer contributions as well.
"However, employers also need to accept that as the workforce ages, their policies must reflect this, and they will need to keep the older employees engaged with the business as much as the new blood. There is now a lot of anecdotal evidence linking engagement to improved productivity and profit, so it's clearly in the employer's interest to do this."
Jelf Employee Benefits believes that there is one area that employers could look to fix now, and that is the age that employee benefits cease.
"When the DRA was scrapped, an exemption was made to allow for certain benefits to cease at State Pension Age. Yet it does not necessarily follow that employers should take this option. An older employee, who suddenly finds themselves without the benefits to which they were previously entitled, may very well feel demotivated, and thus disengaged. This could be avoided by extending cover for all benefits to a higher age."
The research was undertaken during a Jelf Employee Benefits seminar in May 2012, amongst senior HR and employee benefits delegates representing 161 SMEs.
