Bios1301 | Sustainability | A Assessment Answers

Introduction

Sustainability has been seen as the increasing capability of the ecological procedure that offers the ability to tolerate and manage productivity and diversification for the long-term establishment of the society.  In this context, the main principle for managing the sustainability is the way to progress towards a long-term establishment that has many interlined dimensional components related to the social economy, ecology as well as the social culture of the environment.

However, in order to illustrate the statement “systems thinking is typical in developing solutions to tackle sustainable difficulties" systems thinking will be used to evaluate the selected statement. Controlling the growing negative stereotypes, related to the aged workforce in Australian will be used as an example of the wicked problem hindering sustainability. In this context, a wicked issue is usually difficult to solve as it is not always possible to illustrate its nature and contradictory shareholders opinion.

Based on the issue of the growing ageing workforce in Australian, that is implied as wicked challenges have been highlighted in this essay. These wicked issues are generally complex and always in a state of change. This, trying to resolve this issues, there may more issues that may create a problem in terms of finding an optimal solution. Wicked problems are, therefore, an innovate set of difficulties that are signified as the beginning of other major challenges.   

Therefore, for establishing a long-term solution for the difficulties, it is necessary for the people and society to improve the convenient way of perceiving things while enhancing their mental way of thinking. It is at that time when system thinking can be adopted in the thinking model for establishing the required solution to solve evolving challenges.

However, the wicked problem highlighted in the study is about Australia's growing dilemma related to the ageing workforce. It has been found that Australia’s employed population is increasingly getting older wherein one among four people who are aged more than 55 and more has been estimated to increase nearly to one amongst three.  Additionally, it has been reported that ageing workforce in Australia needs significant policy reform and changes in a different range of areas taking from health, social welfare and retirement economic income include workforce market policies to deal with society.

A major imperative in this wicked problem is the dramatic increase in participation of older workforce in Australia. On the contrary, several older Australians are working for the longer period of time that is declining the offset in relation to demographic shifts. However, the essay justifies that fact, that there are ways by which organisations and individuals can start thinking differently.

Based on this wicked problem, an essay will examine the relevant process of system thinking approach in dealing with the complicated issues. System thinking is the different approach in relation to the traditional thinking, as it emphasises on the interconnection between various components used in this system. System thinking in this study focuses on the individual area and interconnection between those parts to offer a solution for the relevant problem. It is, therefore, the method of developing plans to conceptualise and apprehend actions towards substantial integration towards social, economic aspect of long-term development.

Moreover, the particular approach will help to facilitate the activities in moving towards the complicacies present in management that are relational to other processes as well.  Therefore, the main purpose of the essay is to prove that wicked issues do not exist independently rather they are a historical part of the vast society of an interconnected network. In order to address this broad issue, system thinking is necessary for building solution of such critical issues.

In this context, the main purpose of the essay is to evaluate the role of system thinking in international as well as local context. The study, therefore, aims to aim to prove the above statement supporting and contradicting relevant statements to reach a considerable solution to the issue related to the ageing workforce. This is due to the fact that the approach will help highlight the systematic way to mitigate the problems.

Discussion

Environmental culture

Research confirms that the ageing population is soon going to become an increasing challenge for the developed countries by the middle of the decade. Research in this aspect shows that almost 21% of the Australian population constitutes more than 55 in the year 2016 in comparison to 15.9% in 1990. On the contrary, King et al. (2017) reported that according to the intergenerational report it has been observed that the number of aged people aged in between 15 to 64 for every individual aged over 65 has declined to 45 people from the year 1975 that had 7.3 people. However, by the year 2054-55, this has been estimated to halve down to almost 2.7 people (Connell et al. 2015).

It is due to the consequences occurring due to the inadequate participation of workforces as the ageing population will be needed in several areas of policy as well as in economic activity. It is evident that through the motivation of increasing workforce population, in between the ageing workforce that societies will be able to maintain workforce supply and will be able to bring dependence of the non-working population to a considerable level (Baxter et al. 2015). In fact, the Australian study in this context, recommends that the average age of the workforce is presently lower than the optimum age as a result of which the growing participation of aged workforce will have a positive effect on the productivity of the organisation.

According to the intergenerational Report 2015, it has been found that among the three drivers of sustainable economic production, social production is the most necessary things that are required for enhancing Australia's economic performance (Elliott et al. 2016). During each of average Australians work to manufacture double goods and services similar to that which has been done during early 1967. Therefore, the report focuses on the fact that improving productivity for the future will be necessary for sustaining living standards.

Economic culture

From the economic perception, it has been reported aged Australian workforces usually work within a two-tier economy, as result, they are more likely to be expertise in holding management jobs more than the young generation employees. According to Poscia et al. (2016), two major significant studies reported that older workers are often stereotyped by their subordinated colleagues as well as managers in a way that creates a slowdown in the labour market and the working organisation. Stereotypes consisted of beliefs that older people are usually not motivated to work.

Hertel and Zacher (2015) stated that international findings on the issue assisted the Australian aspect in the year 2013 that has been reported by the Australian Human rights commission. In this context, it has been provided that negative behaviour is necessary factors that influence the recruitment as well as retention of the aged workforce.

It is due to this fact that aged workforce often holds this belief in themselves that are found more strongly in industries such as finance, technology, IT and insurance. Therefore, Kavanagh et al. (2015) suggested that in order to break this preconceived stereotypes prevailing within growing organisation, a multiple layers approach is necessary to respond towards the designed framework and reducing this stereotypical attitude towards the aged workforce.

Social culture

von Hippel et al. (2015) argued that the wicked problems of the social issues are lying within the different stereotypes that aged workers are comparatively less motivated to work, problematic to be trained and they are not adjustable with the changes. Lavallière et al. (2016) contrasted this issues commenting that these stereotypes are not correct. In fact, the correct definition for the old aged workforce is yet to be found. Therefore, it is the stereotypes that are exploiting the working ability of the aged population. In this context, Dropkin (2016) commented that several three amongst four organisation have also reported that they are unlikely to hire any older generation workforce as that may impact their productivity.

Therefore, this kind of biased issues present in the selection and recruitment system of the organisation are hampering the beliefs and confidence of the older generation workers and are forcing them to take retirement at an early age (Taylor and Earl 2016). In this regards, the Australian rights commission has documented that over one-quarter of the Australian population who are aged over 50 are likely to encounter aged related partiality. Therefore, Radford et al. (2015) stated that just a diversified approach for the promotion of health and wellbeing for the aged workforce does not always solve all the issues. For mitigating this growing challenges for the older workforce, organisations are required to come up with different systems to retail older labour forces for bringing productivity in the employment.

In the case of social issues, health influences on the older population are in a double-edged position. As stated by Appannah and Biggs (2015), from one point of view it has been seen that Australian have a tendency to live for a longer period of time. However, it has been seen that the increasing health-related issues such as lack of physical fitness and dementia are increasingly hindering the working ability of the aged population. As a result of which aged populations are taking steps to require from the workplaces owing to lack of spaces to practice healthy activities. Jeon et al. (2015) argued that Apart from the fact. It has also been found that children members in the family are completely dependent on the grandparents due to which aged people are hesitating to work after a particular age.

For addressing this issue strongly, Austen et al. (2016) argued that performance systems within the workplace are required to be fair as well as biases free. Research in this context recognised that there is a number factor that influences the aged workforce attitude at work. By considering these factors, an organisation can slow down the early exit syndrome. By avoiding cost related to hiring, training and other activities. Retaining knowledge and expertise skills can be easily passed on to the aged workforce before the retirement (Gong and Kendig 2018).

Considering this factors, organisational and policymakers can take significant steps to reduce organisational stress for the aged workers by enhancing their satisfaction towards job for retaining an increased number of aged population to create a bridge in employment. Apart from these the organisations also need to provide older employees increased autonomy and control authority over their tasks to support them to perform in a positive way thereby increasing the performance.

Conclusion

Therefore, from the above study it can be seen that stereotypes related to aged workers, their behaviours attitudes and choices may have a negative influence on the participation of the labour force.   The study addresses this wicked problem of the aged workforce through a process of system thinking for suggesting the organisational a policymakers to implement a sustainable safety and thoughtful program for offering sustainable health improvements within the aged labour force. 

However, while preparing sustainability solution to systems thinking the organisation needs to carefully address the issues by making sure all the relevant cost as well benefits are in support of the long-term and short-term goals. In this regards, it is also important for the organisation to retain increasing gained workforces who has the high potential to manage their work. Moreover, employers must be planned and organised enough to reconsider the work for allowing gradual release of the aged employees while ensuring that workers engaged within the labour force for long-term purpose and by reducing the rate of early retirement.

Therefore, all this will help the workplaces to develop a stable system of working environment by enhancing the control over job along with improved job profiles for the aged individuals. The workplace employers need to stop making false assumptions on the physical stability of the older workforce other than this, the organisation is required offered the aged workforce with increased and suitable opportunities for increasing professional knowledge of the older workforce.

However, it can be concluded from the overall study that there are there main problems that are required to address effectively in order to bring sustainability in this social issues. In this, the first challenge is that there are different consequences of these short-term activities both in terms of time and space where the local benefits are usually in contradiction to the future challenges. The second challenge is the domestic micro issues hindering the sustainability that turns out to be an even more difficult issue when applied. The third issue is the increasing dilemma.

It has been proved from the essay that challenges in dealing with the sustainable issue are present in the cultural and social preconceived notion and the established physical setting that is required to be abolished with the help of systems thinking in Australia. In this context, there is no doubt that the Australian workforce of the future will possibly be aged than the existing generation. Therefore, organisations as well need to brood over the issue for dealing with the changing society in a way that is sustainable for the industries they are working in.

However, not all the outcomes and evidence can be found through an evidence-based model of the system, as there are certain issues that take place from this kind of studies while allowing the organisation to think in a strategic way on behalf of the ageing employee. Based on this factors, it can be concluded that, as the number of employees is growing older, it is necessary to provide increased attention to their employment position and deeply understand this issues for addressing mental health physical influence on the aged workforces by establishing effective human resource process for retaining aged diverse workforce in Australia.

Reference

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Austen, S., Jefferson, T., Lewin, G., Ong, R. and Sharp, R., 2016. Workability, age and intention to leave aged care work. Australasian Journal on Ageing, 35(1), pp.18-22.

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