Facilitating age diversity in organizations – part I: challenging popular misbeliefs

Public management approaches to an aging workforce: organizational strategies for strategies for adaptability and efficiency

This study investigates the impact of psychological age climate on the motivation of aged workers in China and explores the mediating mechanisms at play. Two proposed chains of mediation capture the potential mechanisms underlying this process. The first chain involves the task and knowledge characteristics of work design, specifically autonomy arrangements and skill-based job demands, as mediators. The second chain focuses on the social and physical/contextual aspects of work design, including social support and ergonomic working conditions. The study sample consisted of 1,094 Chinese employees aged between 50 and 70 years (M = 55.66, SD = 4.274). Our findings reveal that a positive psychological age climate-organizational norms and practices that value and support older workers-significantly boosts their motivation to continue working. This enhancement in motivation is mediated by increased job autonomy and robust social support within the workplace, confirming that these elements are crucial for translating a positive age climate into tangible outcomes. Contrary to existing literature, our research does not support the mediating role of job design tailored to aged workers' skills and ergonomic working conditions. This indicates that in the cultural and organizational context of China, where collective values and respect for elder wisdom predominate, autonomy and social support directly influence workers' motivation more profoundly than ergonomic and job design considerations. The study underscores the importance of creating inclusive organizational cultures and implementing targeted support strategies to retain and engage aged workers effectively. It suggests that public policymakers and organizational leaders should focus on fostering positive psychological age climates and providing necessary autonomy and social resources to meet the unique needs of an aging workforce, thereby enhancing both individual and organizational outcomes in a globally aging society.

Retaining an age-diverse workforce through HRM: The mediation of work engagement and affective commitment

An aging population and an increasingly age-diverse workforce exemplify the complex challenge that age represents for most managers today. For that reason, research has shown the importance of designing and implementing human resources (HR) practices that meet age-related differences in workers’ motives and needs. Drawing on signaling and social exchange theories, the current study investigated a first stage moderated parallel multiple mediation model. We examined the mediating roles of work engagement and affective commitment in the relationship between age-diversity practices and turnover intention, as well as the moderating role of work centrality in these mediated relationships. Using a sample of 802 Portuguese workers, the study supported the parallel multiple mediation hypotheses. Further, the findings revealed that work centrality moderated the relationship between age-diversity practices and turnover intention via work engagement, but not via affective commitment. Age-diversity practices may motivate those workers who place less importance on work to be more engaged, which, in turn, reduces their intentions to leave the organization. Moreover, all workers, regardless of the importance that work plays in their life, are more emotionally attached to the organization and more willing to stay when there are age-diversity practices. Thus, to retain a healthy and productive age-diverse workforce, organizations should implement age-diversity practices. Empirical and practical implications are discussed.

Age and tenure diversity on the work floor

Purpose

Past research on how to compose a team is ambiguous, especially with respect to diversity dimensions. The authors argue that previous inconsistencies in results have arisen for two main reasons. First, there is a lack of clarity about the concept of age diversity, as age separation, age variety and age disparity are frequently used synonymously, but capture very different aspects of diversity. Second, in many research settings, age and tenure diversity have been intertwined. When staffing teams, many staff managers ask for staffing advise concerning staff diversity in order to enhance efficiency. This staffing problem is mainly a question how homogeneous and heterogeneous teams should be composed. In this paper, the authors capture both – age and tenure diversity – as well as their interaction and argue that age separation and tenure variety are most likely to affect team performance in a routine task. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors are testing the hypothesis using rich quantitative field data from a steel company.

Findings

The results show that age separation decreases performance while tenure variety increases performance. Moreover, the beneficial effects of tenure variety cannot arise when age separation is too large.

Research limitations/implications

The authors show that diversity research is very sensitive to the operationalization of diversity.

Practical implications

Managers can benefit from the study by learning how to optimally staff teams: while age diversity should be low, tenure diversity can be high.

Originality/value

Due to the unique data set, the authors can separate the influence of tenure and age diversity.

Understanding the Contribution of HRM Bundles for Employee Outcomes Across the Life-Span

Using the Job Demands-Resources model literature and the life-span theory as scholarly frameworks, we examined the effects of job demands and job resources as mediators in the relationship between bundles of used HRM practices and employee outcomes. In addition, we tested for age differences in our research model. Findings confirmed the hypothesized original 2-factor structure representing maintenance and development HRM practices. Structural Equation Modeling analyses showed that the maintenance HRM bundle related directly and negatively to employee outcomes, without moderating effects of age. However, job resources appeared to mediate this relationship in a positive way as it also did for the development HRM bundle. Whereas this study showed the 'driving power' of the actual use of HRM bundles through job resources, regardless of the employee's age, this study also suggests a 'dark side' of HRM. In particular, we found that development HRM bundles may also increase job demands, which, in turn, may result in lower levels of beneficial employee outcomes. These empirical outcomes demonstrate the strength of the driving power eliciting from job resources preceded by any HRM bundle. Moreover, this effect appears to apply to employees of all ages. Our moderated-mediation model appeared robust for several control variables. Overall, this study provides an extension of the well-known Job Demands-Resources model by including maintenance and development bundles of HRM practices used by employees that have a differential effect on job demands and job resources which in turn have an impact on employee outcomes.

Coping With Negative Stereotypes Toward Older Workers: Organizational and Work-Related Outcomes

The current study aims to test a moderated-mediation model in which occupational self-efficacy determines the indirect effect of negative stereotypes about older workers in the organization both on psychological engagement in the work domain and on attitudes toward development opportunities through identification with the company. The survey involved 1,501 Italian subjects aged over 50 who were employed by a major large-scale retailer. Consistently with the Social Identity Theory and the Social Exchange Theory, results showed that the perception of negative stereotypes about older workers in the organization is associated with low identification with the company and, subsequently, with poor psychological engagement in the work domain and with attitudes indicating very little interest in development opportunities. In addition, this association was found to be stronger in older workers with higher and medium levels of occupational self-efficacy. These findings suggest that organizations should discourage the dissemination of negative stereotypes about older workers in the workplace because they may lead to older workers' disengagement from the work domain and their loss of interest in development opportunities.

The mediating role of coping behavior on the age-technostress relationship: A longitudinal multilevel mediation model

This study seeks to explain the interplay between chronological age and technology-related strain through techno-stressors and coping strategy choices in organizational settings. Grounded in Lazarus´ stress theory, theories of cognitive aging, the life span theory of control and socioemotional selectivity theory, this study argues that even though older workers are more prone to techno-stressors, aging is connected to gaining coping skills, which in turn reduce technology-related strain over time. Understanding these processes enables modifying employees' coping strategy choices and mitigating negative outcomes of technostress at the workplace. Longitudinal data from 1,216 employees over a time period of 8 months were used to perform multilevel mediation modeling. The findings reveal that age was negatively related to technology-related strain. The link between age and technology-related strain was explained through behavioral disengagement, which older workers used less than younger workers. Active coping and social coping did not act as mediators of this relationship across time points. These relationships were stable after controlling for dependency on technology.

Reconstructing Retirement as an Enterprising Endeavor

This article explores issues of age and enterprise in later life as manifested in tensions between retiree and entrepreneurial identities. We utilize the concept of a discursive event to examine time-bound online data, specifically media texts and reader comments associated with the online news coverage of an insurance company report. This report introduced the label Weary to describe “working entrepreneurial and active retirees.” Our analysis shows how keeping healthy and active are constructed as insufficient markers of a productive and successful older age. These markers are supplanted by a neoliberal discourse that prioritizes enterprise and economic productivity in retirement. However, the Weary subject position has implications within this discourse that constrain the valued contribution of older adults to productive work yet deny access to this group to entrepreneurial endeavors. This highlights the destabilization of retirement and critical tensions in its discursive reconceptualization as a period of entrepreneurial endeavor.

Criticality of detailed staff turnover measurement

Purpose

Scrutiny of staff turnover in large organisations is traditionally reactive, involving benchmarking against peers at institution level. Not being an outlier tempts the inference that turnover is “satisfactory”. However, individual departments exhibiting varied, counterbalancing patterns might be masked; meaning situations that present challenges and require action could be missed. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the degree to which headline staff turnover can mask internal variations in a large post-1992 English university with over 2,000 staff.

Design/methodology/approach

The methods scrutinised related mainstream benchmarking sources, and analysed turnover for both new recruits and staff leaving, as well as net turnover. The inverted Nomogramma di Gandy helped highlight overall patterns and identify outliers. Staff categories and characteristics examined included: age, gender, diversity, staff type and contractual status.

Findings

It was found that (wide) internal variations were masked between university departments and between different gender and age groups, with Generation Y presenting issues for future recruitment and retention. Localised high turnover rates were found, with particular issues involving research staff. A proactive approach is essential, analysing local data to reflect internal structures, and staff categories and characteristics. Understanding internal and external staff dynamics supports organisations to meet strategic aims and objectives, and target local action.

Originality/value

The approach and findings provided lessons for staff management relevant to universities, which are critical to many, if not most large organisations in the UK and internationally, particularly in times of uncertainty.

Aging as a topic in a business magazine: an opportunity or threat for management?

Purpose

Recently, research on aging in the work-life context from the perspective of how to manage, support and retain an aging workforce has increased among management scholars, and therefore is contributing to the current societal need to extend work careers. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the articles discussing aging in the work-life context in the Finnish business magazine Talouselämä (Economic Life) during the years 2002–2017.

Design/methodology/approach

A total of 81 articles were included in the analysis. They were classified into seven themes as a result of a content analysis. Three levels of discussions on aging were identified: societal, organizational and individual. These levels were further analyzed in order to revel what kind of issues have been emphasized or overlooked. The results were discussed in the context of Finnish work life.

Findings

The findings showed that aging has been presented in a passive and deterministic (or at least neutral) tone. Most of the articles focused on the consequences and actions related to an aging workforce at the societal level. At the individual level, aging was mainly discussed in terms of changes related to work ability and functioning, with aging individuals as the actors responsible for managing and controlling the effects of their own aging process. The organizational-level discussion on aging was limited and narrow, mostly lacking any discussion of the role of organizations as responsible actors or from the perspective of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).

Practical implications

Organizations could take a more active and broader role in terms of supporting the longer working careers of older employees. Professional magazines could deal more with “age-aware” research as it relates to organizations, especially the potential and opportunities of the aging workforce. Aging research could promote media level publishing and applications of knowledge.

Originality/value

Few critically oriented management studies have investigated how aging is presented and discussed in business magazines.

Talent management in higher education: is turnover relevant?

Purpose

Institution-wide staff turnover in universities might be considered “satisfactory”, but can mask wide counterbalancing patterns between departments and different staff. This paper aims to explore the benefits of detailed turnover analysis in managing talent in the complex changing landscape of Higher Education in the UK.

Design/methodology/approach

Staff turnover was analysed for both new recruits and staff leaving, as well as net turnover. The inverted Nomogramma di Gandy highlighted overall patterns and outliers. Staff characteristics examined included age, gender, staff type and contractual status.

Findings

There were (wide) variations in staff turnover for age, gender and type of contract, with particularly high turnover for research staff (influenced by the use of fixed-term contracts). This disproportionately affected younger staff, who are more likely than their elders to seek employment elsewhere, but might stay if there are career opportunities and development. Practical processes are suggested to improve intelligence that enables the best talent to be identified and retained, support a life-span perspective and inform emerging issues such as gender pay differentials.

Originality/value

Given the increasing complexity of managing talent in universities, with their predominantly knowledge-type employees, the research serves to highlight that high localized staff turnover can adversely impact on a university’s research capacity, which in turn presents risks to the achievement of its strategic aims and objectives. Therefore, detailed scrutiny of staff turnover dynamics can pinpoint where recruitment and retention policies and practice require focus.

The moderating effects of status and trust on the performance of age-diverse work groups

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to help organizations capitalize on the potential advantages of age diversity by offering insight into two new moderators in the age diversity, work group performance relationship – status congruity and cognition-based trust.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors surveyed 197 employees and 56 supervisors across 59 work groups to test for the moderating effects of status congruity and cognition-based trust on the age diversity, work group performance relationship.

Findings

The results demonstrated, on the one hand, that under conditions of status congruity (i.e. when there were high levels of perceived status legitimacy and veridicality) and/or when perceptions of cognition-based trust were high within the group, the relationship between age diversity and work group performance was positive. On the other hand, under conditions of status incongruity and/or low levels of cognition-based trust, this relationship was negative.

Research limitations/implications

The findings contribute to the literature by being the first to provide empirical evidence for the theorized effects of status on the performance of age-diverse work groups and also by demonstrating the effects of cognition-based trust in a new context – age-diverse work groups.

Practical implications

Arising from the study’s findings are several strategies, which are expected to help organizations enhance perceptions of status congruity and/or trust and ultimately the performance of their age-diverse work groups.

Originality/value

The paper is the first to empirically demonstrate the moderating effects of status congruity and cognition-based trust on the age diversity, work group performance relationship. The study also establishes important distinctions between the effects of objective status differences vs status perceptions.

Intergenerational conflict at US airlines: an unresolved Oedipal Complex?

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how, if at all, organizational dynamics changed at US airlines after an industry wide modification to mandatory retirement age regulations in 2007. Findings challenge assumptions that society, organizations, and employees will all unequivocally benefit from abolishing mandatory retirement by investigating the impact of age-related policy changes on US airline pilots.

Design/methodology/approach

In total, 43 semi-structured interviews were conducted with captains and copilots from US airlines between September 2010 and July 2011. From this data set, two informant subgroups emerged: first, senior captains averaging 59 years of age; and second, junior pilots averaging 43.5 years of age.

Findings

Findings revealed that both senior and junior pilots reported retirement age policy changes created an antagonistic environment, pitting employees against each other in competition over scarce resources.

Research limitations/implications

Paper findings are based on empirical materials collected during an 11 month snapshot-in-time between September 2010 and July 2011 and interview data are based on a small subgroup of US airline pilots who self-selected to participate in the study. Therefore, findings are not unbiased and may not be generalizable across all airlines’ pilot workgroups.

Practical implications

Considerable research has been conducted identifying the policy and practice changes that employers need to adopt to retain older workers. However, few studies consider the psychological impact of these age-related workplace changes on employees or the organizational psychodynamics they might trigger.

Originality/value

This paper makes two main contributions. First, through use of the psychoanalytic construct of the Oedipus complex, the paper sheds light on some of the psychodynamic consequences of age-related policy changes. Second, it challenges assumptions about workforce aging and the underlying causes of intergenerational conflict, highlighting ways that policy changes intended to eradicate discrimination against older workers can result in age discrimination against younger employees.

Promoting safety participation through diversity and inclusion climates

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of diversity climate and inclusion climate on safety participation behaviors through the mediating effect of the motivation to actively promote safety at work.

Design/methodology/approach

Participants were 491 workers employed in four Italian metal-mechanical companies. They completed a paper questionnaire containing measures of psychological diversity climate, psychological inclusion climate, safety motivation participation and safety participation behaviors. Data were analyzed with structural equation modeling.

Findings

Results showed that safety participation motivation fully mediates the relationship between diversity climate and safety participation behaviors, whereas it partially mediates the relationship between climate for inclusion and safety participation behaviors.

Practical implications

The present findings can help managers to motivate employees in pursuing safety goals independently of compensation or obligation by creating an organization in which the main concern is caring for each other’s well-being.

Originality/value

This is the first study which has empirically tested the relationships between diversity climate, inclusion climate and safety behaviors. It has extended previous research which simply tested the effects of objective types of diversity on safety performance.

Tailoring professional development for teachers in primary education

Purpose

– The aim of this survey study among N=180 Dutch teachers was to examine the moderating role of calendar age and proactive personality in the relationships between developmental opportunities, on the one hand, and work engagement and self-perceived employability, on the other. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Design/methodology/approach

– Hierarchical regression analyses have been used, illustrated by means of quotes – gathered through open questions in the survey – to support the quantitative findings.

Findings

– A significant interaction effect between calendar age and developmental opportunities in relation to self-perceived employability, but not to work engagement, has been found, revealing stronger positive effects for developmental opportunities among older workers than among younger ones.

Research limitations/implications

– The present study provides a starting-point for further research on professional development in other occupational settings.

Practical implications

– The use of age-conscious developmental opportunities is a powerful tool in encouraging life-long learning.

Social implications

– Improvement in teachers’ engagement and employability will enhance their performance, will consequently lead to better pupil performance, and will contribute to the wider status of the profession, meaning that more young talented people will seriously consider working in the field and thereby helping to address the urgent need for more teaching staff.

Originality/value

– This study increases the knowledge of professional development among teachers and examines to what extent age and proactivity play a role in this regard. The results of the empirical work challenge dominant views on age-related declines and losses, and invite the authors to continue scholarly work in this field focussing upon long-term intra-individual development.