Giving the Life Academy annual lecture in London Brendan Barber revealed that two in five retired men and one in five retired women are leaving work earlier than expected and that a quarter of managers admit to discriminating on the basis of age. He said this is 'not just a terrible waste of experience and talent - but a story of lives unfulfilled and aspirations denied.'

During the speech he called for four policy approaches:

• More investment in training for older workers, backed up with a right to retraining, with paid time off to learn new skills, supported where appropriate with subsidies for employers.
• A flexible approach to retirement that gives people the choice to work beyond state retirement age. 'Retirement should be less of a cliff-edge', so that 'all workers have the opportunity to ease into retirement by combining part-time work with a part-time pension.'
• The right to request flexible working for everyone - young and old.  This would be particularly useful for grandparents who are caring for their grandchildren.
• To safeguard the health and well-being of the older workforce by allowing older workers to change jobs and calling on employers to make 'reasonable adjustments to jobs, backed by redeployment opportunities and proper investment in occupational health'.

Emphasising the strong business case for these changes Brendan Barber said: 'Older workers are an invaluable source of experience, expertise and crucially - in an ageing society - of market intelligence. Put simply, ageism - like any form of discrimination - is simply bad for business. No organisation will succeed over the longer term unless it nurtures the talents, knowledge and potential of all its workforce. That's why all employers - whether large or small, public or private, manufacturing or services - need to start getting their head round the idea of proactive age management.'

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