Older workers and returners are becoming core to workforce resilience

If you feel like workforce planning has become a game of catch-up, you’re not imagining it. Across the UK, employers are wrestling with a combination of skills gaps, health-related absence, and a talent pool that feels tighter from multiple directions.

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Responses to these are familiar – pay more, train more, reinforce values and purpose. But what’s changing is who organisations are increasingly looking to for capability.

Our recent research shows two trends accelerating: employers are more actively hiring people returning from a career break, and they are placing greater emphasis on recruiting and retaining older workers. This is not a 'diversity initiative' bolted on to the side. It’s a practical response to sustained pressure on capability.

What matters now is doing it well – not just opening the door, but building a workforce plan that recognises different needs, targets investment properly, and reduces risk.

Comination of pressure points

Most employers I speak to don’t point to a single issue. It’s the combination that is making decisions harder.

Skills gaps are widespread. Many employers are worried their people don’t have the skills they need to deliver today’s work, let alone what’s coming next.

Health and long-term absence are persistent. Mental health challenges and long-term sickness remain a material constraint on capacity and productivity.

Talent pipelines are tighter. Changes affecting overseas recruitment, alongside concerns about domestic supply, mean some roles take longer to fill and cost more to secure.

At the same time, more employees are choosing to work longer – whether because they want to, because they can’t afford not to, or because the idea of a 'hard stop' retirement no longer fits their lives. That has implications for everything from role design to benefits, absence management, and leadership capability.

Why older workers and returners are a smart answer

There’s a temptation to talk about 'older workers' and 'returners' as single groups. They’re not. They bring different experiences and face different barriers.

Older workers often bring deep organisational knowledge, judgement built over time, and the ability to coach and stabilise teams. But what they want from work can differ materially: flexibility may matter more than promotion; health support may be more relevant than another short-term incentive; financial priorities may not match assumptions.

Returners can bring breadth of experience, maturity, and renewed motivation. But confidence, currency of skills, and practical constraints (often caring responsibilities) can affect how quickly they settle and thrive. Without a clear route back in, organisations can lose people who would otherwise have stayed and contributed for years.

Both groups can help plug capability gaps. But only if employers design roles, progression, management capability and benefits around real needs, rather than stereotypes.

The risk of blanket retention strategies

In response to talent pressure, many employers are increasing pay, increasing training, and investing more in values and purpose. Those are sensible options. The risk is deploying them as broad-brush solutions.

When budgets are tight, generic spending can be expensive and disappointing. You can invest heavily and still see churn in the roles that matter most, because the offer doesn’t address the reasons people leave.

This is where data and analysis make the difference.

Start with insight: who is leaving, why, and what would change it?

Workforce strategy is strongest when it’s built on evidence, not instinct. For employers thinking about older workers and returners, I’d focus on five questions:

1. Where are the capability gaps most acute – and which gaps actually threaten delivery?
2. Which roles are hardest to replace, and what is the cost of vacancy or underperformance?
3. What are the leading indicators of turnover risk – by role, team, tenure, and life stage?
4. Which parts of the reward and benefits package are valued most by different groups?
5. What is the quality of the manager experience – and where does it break down?

The goal isn’t to create more dashboards. It’s to target decisions: where to invest, what to stop doing, and which changes will have the biggest impact on retention and capability.

Practical actions employers can take now

Here are steps that consistently improve outcomes, without requiring a wholesale redesign of your people strategy.

1) Build a proper returner pathway

A returner policy on the intranet is not a returner programme.

Strong approaches usually include:

• Structured re-entry routes (for example, fixed-term returnships that can convert to permanent roles).
• Confidence-building and skills refresh support.
• Clear manager guidance on onboarding and performance expectations.
• Flexibility that is explicit, not “available after six months if it goes well”.

2) Make roles work for older workers without forcing a trade-off

If you want to attract and retain older workers, consider:

• Job design that reduces unnecessary strain (physical or cognitive overload).
• Flexibility options that support health and caring responsibilities.
• Progression that isn’t limited to upward moves (specialist, mentor, quality oversight roles).
• Wellbeing and health support that is easy to access and not overly medicalised.

3) Target training where it reduces risk

The most effective learning investment is:

• Tied to the capabilities that drive performance in critical roles.
• Designed for mid- and senior-level staff as well as early-career employees.
• Measured by changes in capability and retention, not attendance.

4) Get serious about manager capability

Managers are the 'delivery system' for your employee experience. If you want older workers and returners to thrive, managers need support to:

• Have better conversations about flexibility and performance.
• Manage workload and wellbeing without avoiding accountability.
• Understand how different groups value reward and benefits.

5) Use reward and benefits to support retention, not just recruitment

You don’t need a bigger benefits budget to be more effective. You need better alignment.

Use insight to:

• Identify which benefits actually shift retention risk for priority groups.
• Remove or simplify low-value benefits.
• Communicate the value of what you already offer in a way employees understand.

This is about workforce resilience, not quick fixes

Skills gaps, health pressures, and tighter talent supply aren’t short-term problems. Employers who treat older workers and returners as part of a coherent workforce strategy – supported by evidence, targeted investment, and practical manager-led delivery – will be better placed to protect capability and reduce organisational risk.

If you’d like to discuss what this means for your organisation, we can help you use workforce data to identify retention risk, quantify the cost of skills gaps, and shape a reward and benefits approach that supports the people you most need to keep.