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Defence Sector Organisation Makes Significant Progress On Its Age Inclusion Journey With 55/Redefined

This defence organisation wanted to find a business partner that could provide solutions to enhance their existing their talent attraction activities to find skilled engineers for difficult to fill roles. The campaign delivered more than the expected number of potential candidates. It not only helped the company to understand how to tap into the over-50s workforce but set them on the first stages of their age inclusion journey.

James Marsh

A published author, as well as a corporate and lifestyle media professional, James works across content, marketing and consultancy.

They wanted to find a business partner who could provide solutions to enhance its existing talent attraction activities and find skilled engineers for difficult-to-fill roles. Utilising 55/Redefined’s tailored attraction marketing product, Jobs/Redefined, they piloted an over-50s talent attraction campaign focused on engineering and science based skill sets. The campaign delivered more than the expected number of potential candidates and helped the company to better understand how to tap into the over-50s workforce. They were able to take an important first step in an age-inclusion journey, and the strategic work to become a 55/Redefined age-inclusive employer continues.

They wanted to look at how to attract mechanical engineers in the over-50s space, and 55/Redefined gave them the knowledge and tools to do just that.

A Bold Decision Made by a Forward Thinking Recruitment Team

Their innovative recruitment team has been particularly keen to recruit older mechanical engineers, as these workers meet the required experience and qualifications. To fill their pipeline, they sought additional help from 55/Redefined with a focus on attracting potential candidates for their specialist engineer roles and to also include wider coverage in terms of anyone with an engineering background for other roles across the business. In doing so, they were also able to start their journey to age inclusion as part of their growth strategy.

Gaining Crucial Insights into Older Workers

55/Redefined is the global expert in understanding the challenges businesses face due to a global shift in demographics – birth rates are falling while, at the same time, people are living longer. By the end of 2025, almost half of UK workers will be over 50. Companies like this defence sector organisation have recognised that implementing an effective age-inclusive strategy is now a business imperative.

When the two companies met, 55/Redefined showed the company compulsive research around the over-50s. They explained older workers tend not to respond to the recruitment processes that are typically used for younger age groups. Also, that recruiters use LinkedIn extensively to find candidates, yet only 16% of over-50s are active on LinkedIn (1). This resonated with the company's experience and the company was keen to explore additional pillars to bolster their existing talent attraction strategy.

50% Over 50 Almost half of UK workers will be over-50 by 2025. Any employer that isn’t trying to recruit from the over-50s demographic is missing out on experienced candidates across half of the potential workforce.

The First Steps Towards an Age-Inclusive Future

To help this pioneering company on the specific issue of recruiting older mechanical engineers, 55/Redefined recommended a targeted Recruitment Advertising Campaign (RAC). This is a unique, digital, geo-targeted talent attraction programme, created by 55/Redefined, that generates leads using non-traditional recruitment methods.

A RAC uncovers passive talent pools of older workers who have the right experience and an interest in taking on a new challenge – but only once they are aware of the opportunity. As the over-50s tend not to look at jobs boards nor use LinkedIn, they often don’t know about job opportunities. Crucially, a RAC introduces the opportunity to the target market in a way they respond to.

The Campaign

The project ran over a 12-week period. Throughout that time, 55/Redefined was in regular contact, providing constant updates on how the process was performing.

In addition to the ad campaign, reach was extended using the Jobs/Redefined digital platform, comprising a dedicated jobs board which only advertises vacancies for the over-50s and only at companies that are age-inclusive employers, and amplification across the 120,000 strong social and members platform of economically active over-50s.

With 55/Redefined’s expert insight, combined with tried and tested strategies, the campaign significantly over-delivered on targets. The over-50s leads had been nurtured by 55/Redefined to become actively interested in the roles, so the organisation was able to take these engaged prospects through all the possible opportunities within the company, not just the vacant mechanical engineer roles. Many of these eager over-50s have been added to the company’s talent pool for future openings.

The team at 55/Redefined worked closely with the company's recruitment team, with weekly calls booked alongside regular leads reports giving clear and actionable steps to follow through the process.

An Example of Driving Change

One over-50s worker, Andy, an experienced engineer who was at the time earning a living as a grocery delivery driver in the company's location, saw an employment opportunity for over-50s engineers on his phone due to the RAC’s precise geo-targeting.

His social media scrolling interrupted his day to make him aware that engineering opportunities were open to his age group with his experience, which gave him the confidence to find out more, knowing that he would not be subject to age bias.

He contacted the company and is now exploring potential opportunities with them. This is typical of 55/Redefined’s approach: marketing the employment opportunity through multiple touchpoints, and at an earlier stage than typical jobs campaigns.

The strategy works – over-50s like Andy, who wanted to get back into engineering but wasn't looking in the usual places, confidently respond to the message they are sought after and express interest in significant numbers once they are assured that age will not be a barrier and they won't be wasting their time.

Over 70% of workers aged 50+ are satisfied with their jobs compared to just 30% under 25. This high job satisfaction makes over 50s workers much more likely to stay

The RACs Fills Talent Pipelines From the Experienced Over-50s Talent Pool Across All Industry Sectors

Ask our team about our success stories in insurance, finance, law, retail and gaming. We've filled pipelines in customer service, engineering and IT to name a few. We're helped age inclusive businesses hire:

Call centre operators for major high street banks
Customer service representatives in store for mobile network operators
Coders and developers for fintech and gaming companies
Support staff for legal, financial services and insurance enterprises
In-store retail advisors for a British electrical retailer on the high street

Join the Age-Inclusive Revolution

Recognising, celebrating and retaining older workers has never been more important. 30% of the global workforce will be aged 50 or over by 2050, and ensuring they have a valued place in your business is vital to growing your business.

If your company needs additional help and support to hire from untapped talent pools, 55/Redefined is here for you. Our team is ready to show you how we’re helping our customers benefit from the untapped potential of an experienced, willing, and dynamic older workforce.

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About 55/Redefined

The 55/Redefined group encompasses three businesses focussed on the 50+ demographic – Work/Redefined – our B2B Enterprise Solutions business, Life/Redefined – our D2C Consumer Platform and Jobs/Redefined – our Job Board Marketplace for Hirers and Candidates.

About Work/Redefined

Work/Redefined is redefining age inclusivity in the modern workplace. It works with businesses to enable organisations to become the employer of choice for the over-50s.

References

1 https://work-redefined.co/resources/the-unretirement-uprising-report

2 https://work-redefined.co/resources/the-unretirement-uprising-report