Generations and Work Motivation - Ageism and The Practices of Human Resource Management

Abstract

Ageing is one of today's problems for societies and organisations, showing clear evidence that it is becoming a serious problem between generations. Age gaps cause distance between junior and senior workers, reflected in negative behaviour. For this reason, taking a global and broad view of intergenerationalism in the workplace is necessary.This work aims to validate the existence of different levels of motivation at work among different generations. We also hope to understand how human resource management practices contribute to retaining workers from other age groups.The work was carried out using a case study. Employees from one of Portugal's large clothing retail shops were consulted. The study was conducted in the Lefties group shops in northern Portugal. The analysis is quantitative. Several hypotheses were defined and validated using tests and a structural equation model. The results allowed us to characterise how each generation values the different human resource management practices. It also made it possible to analyse their relationship with the motivation perceived by the company's employees.