UK businesses still have far to go to adequately prepare for the upcoming "demographic crunch", according to the findings of a newly-released survey by the Adecco Institute.

The UK Demographic Fitness Survey found that UK firms were actually less prepared now than they were a year ago to deal with the dual-headed punch of a shortage of young, qualified professionals entering the workforce and an excess of retirements.

Employers scored highly on providing lifelong learning opportunities for their workforces. But they fell short on career management and knowledge management points.

Adecco Institute managing director Donna Murphy told Recruiter that a key failure in the knowledge management arena is that too few employers understand "who in the company knows what" in terms of business knowledge.

Businesses must also improve in the areas of health management and age diversity. Murphy said that employers must do more to integrate workers across in inter-generational teams and departments. Innovative tools such as alumni networks and junior-senior roundtables can help, she said.

The UK Demographic Fitness Survey was based on interviews with HR decision makers in 502 UK companies.

Of the companies that participated in the survey, 238 were medium-sized, with annual sales of e10m to e50m (£7.9m to £39.8m), and 264 were large, with annual sales of more than e50m. The companies were drawn almost evenly from the trade, industry and services sectors (162, 170 and 170 respectively).