Better management practices will be needed to keep older workers in employment and productive, according to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD).

It warned that raising the state pension age would only be a small part of the battle, as many older workers do not work up to the existing state pension age.

Duncan Brown, Assistant Director General of the CIPD, responding to the publication of Lord Turner's Pensions Commission Report, said: "Raising the state pension age may well increase the notional supply of older workers, but it won't necessarily increase the actual supply of them, or demand for them.

A quarter of men and a third of women aged between 50 and the current state pension age not in the labour market. Brown said that many employers had a lazy attitude to older workers and were "happy to place them in the 'out tray' for years before they actually retire".

In turn he said this led to less job satisfaction among older workers.

"The chances of an increase in the state pension age achieving the desired objectives and boosting UK productivity rest on the willingness and ability of employers to adapt their employment practices to engage older workers more fully, to motivate them, and to reduce their desire to retire early," he said. "If the government were to abolish the mandatory retirement age altogether, as Lord Turner recommends, they would remove the 'ejector seat' option from employers and encourage a more careful focus on effective management."