The secret weapon behind the Bunnings workforce

“We learnt a long time ago that these team members play an integral role in creating a great place to work and providing our customer the best experience,” says Bunnings chief people officer Damian Zahra.

“They often have significant life, industry and trade experience, which makes them a wealth of knowledge for both our customers and wider team.”

To ensure age is not a barrier to employment, Bunnings adopts a flexible recruitment process, which includes accepting resumes dropped off by walk-ins (good for the non-tech-savvy), job ads on in-store posters and videos featuring stories of some of its long-tenured team.

Flexible rostering and tailored support are part of a retention strategy, and younger workers are regularly encouraged to turn to older colleagues for advice.

“By sharing their knowledge, skills and life experiences, our older team members often become great mentors to their younger teammates,” Zahra says.

When it’s time for a Bunnings worker to retire, a “Retiring Well” program provides a tailored pathway that includes options for a gradual reduction in hours over time and advice on how to enjoy financial, emotional and physical wellbeing in retirement. Given that older workers are often some of the most productive in the workforce, Kulik believes organisations with proactive policies in place will reap rewards.

“The research emphasises that ageism isn’t just about denying older people access to jobs. Ageism is also about expecting older people to do jobs in exactly the same way, at exactly the same pace, as younger people,” she says.

While Kulik says we are starting to shift some stereotypes – for example, by featuring older workers more often in advertising – progress could come much faster with an attitude change.

“To speed up change, we need managers to recognise the value of their healthy older workers, and accept that even the healthiest of older people need some accommodation. Often that accommodation is very minor and low cost. But it does require some flexibility on the part of employers,” says Kulik.

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