Managing Older Workers through Relationships at Work: Social Support, Feedback, and Performance

Abstract

With the aging of the global workforce, it is crucial to deepen our understanding of how to keep older workers healthy, motivated, and productive. In this research, we integrate job design with socioemotional selectivity theory, to propose that social job characteristics affect employee performance differently for older and younger workers. Specifically, in a three-wave survey (N=454), we tested employee age as a moderator of the relationships between receiving social support and feedback at work, and in-role and extra-role performance, as well as giving social support and feedback at work, and in-role and extra-role performance. The results showed that, in general, both receiving and giving social support and feedback are associated more strongly with the performance of older than younger workers. The findings provide important theoretical implications for the study of aging and work and offer practical applications for organizations and managers on creating workplaces in which older workers can reap the benefits of social relationships to remain productive.