ByAvivah Wittenberg-Cox,
Contributor.
On 11 May, the OECD launched something organisations have needed for years: a practical, evidence-based instrument to assess how prepared they actually are for longer working lives. The Longevity Readiness Tool (LRT)—developed in partnership with AARP and now freely available online—is not a report to file away. It is a diagnostic that takes under thirty minutes, benchmarks performance against sector peers across more than 30 countries, and points directly toward action.
The launch panel was not the usual conference lineup. Around the table in the OECD’s Paris auditorium sat the Global Brand President of Accor; the Executive Director of Eurofound; the Director of Organisation and Future of Work at L’Oréal; the Chief Culture, Inclusion and Experience Officer of Sanofi; the Greek Ambassador to the OECD; and the founder of Knowldy, a career platform for experienced professionals. (Full disclosure: I facilitated the event). The room was not full of longevity advocates. It was full of people who run things.
Their collective message: the organisations that move first on this will have a measurable competitive advantage. The talent, the knowledge, the productivity—it is already in the building. The question is whether the systems are designed to use it.
