Managers’ Attitudes to Different Action Proposals in the Direction to Extended Working Life: A Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

In many countries, the retirement age is postponed due to the global demographic change, and a larger amount of older people need to participate in working life. However, how and what measures and action proposals that could extend and increase employees’ voluntary and sustainable participation in working life have not entirely been investigated. The employer is responsible for enabling employees’ access to measures that facilitate participation in the workplace, for enabling employability and a sustainable extended working life. The aim of this cross-sectional study was to evaluate Swedish managers’ attitude to action proposals that could increase employees’ participation in an extended working life. Logistic regression analysis was used to investigate associations between different univariate estimates and in data modelling. The nine determinate areas of the swAge model, for a sustainable working life and employability, was used as analysis model, i.e., self-rated health and diagnoses; physical work environment; mental work environment; work schedule, work pace and time for recuperation; financial incentives; personal social environment; social work environment; stimulation, motivation and self-crediting through work tasks; and competence, skills and knowledge development. The results stated decreased physical work demands to be the final measure in the multivariate modelling associated to whether the managers believe their employees ‘can work’ until age 65 and older, however, changing work tasks in the workplace when needed, rotation between different work tasks to decrease physical as well as mental workload and strain, and decreased mental work demands proved to be statistically significant in the univariate estimates. The strongest measure activity in the organisations, associated to managers believing their employees ‘want to work’ until age 65 and older in the multivariate modelling, was decreased work pace, however, increased time for recuperation between work shifts also proved to be statistically significant in the univariate estimate. The management’s perspectives on measures and action proposals associated to whether employees ‘can’ and ‘want’ to work will hopefully contribute to an increased understanding in society and the organisational process of creating a sustainable extended working life.