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March 21, 2016

Retirees share knowledge with next generation

Program helps improve quality of life in twilight years while passing on life lessons and soft skills to students. 

A pilot program to capture the knowledge of retirees has boosted health and wellbeing of older people while simultaneously accelerating learning and experience in students.   

The success of the program, which was conducted under UOW’s Global Challenges, has led chief researcher Dr Peter Massingham to recommend the mentoring scheme be embedded in university courses and adapted for workplaces around Australia. 

Knowledge management expert Dr Massingham and his multidisciplinary team of researchers paired retirees who had successful careers in teaching, engineering and nursing with UOW students studying in the same area. 

After a series of focus groups and one-on-one sessions between 32 retires and students, retirees reported a significant boost in self-esteem and confidence and a reduction in feelings of stress, anxiety and depression. 

“The program had profound impact on the mental health and wellbeing of the retirees involved,” Dr Massingham, from the Faculty of Business said. 

“It led to significant reductions in anxiety, depression, and stress. Depression levels, for example, reduced by 90 per cent. It also increased retirees’ hopefulness for the future.” 

The team also found a marked improvement in age discrimination and negative stereotypes about older people and a boost in the ‘soft skills’ of students.   

“Student perception of older people’s work performance increased and ageist misconceptions, such as older people are less productive and have slowing cognitive skills, were also less prevalent.” 

“The program changed respondents’ fundamental belief systems about older people.” 

Dr Massingham has provided strategic advice on knowledge management for many of Australia’s leading global companies. Recently, he completed a large Australian Research Council Linkage Project with the Department of Defence to measure and manage the impact of lost organisational knowledge. 

“With increased life expectancy and people having fewer children, Australia, like much of the rest of the Western world, has an ageing population. As people retire their working knowledge is often lost or lays idle. It’s essential that we capture this valuable information for future generations.”

 “The ‘Sharing Retirees’ Knowledge’ program has received an overwhelming positive response from participants. We see potential for it to be adapted for workplaces around Australia and embedded into university curriculum.” 

“We also see the need for a national database of retiree knowledge that enables younger people to search and find suitable mentors.” 

UOW’s Global Challenges Program is a major research initiative designed to address the complex problems facing the world through multidisciplinary research. ‘Living Well, Longer’, which this research was conducted under, is one of the central challenges, focusing on maximising the mental and physical health of all Australians. 

Photo caption: Dr Peter Massingham with retired senior executive Colin Greig, who mentored UOW business student Simone van Zanen as part of the program.