Old Dogs, New Tricks: Developing an Aging Workforce

Abstract

Enhancing and maintaining older employees’ employability has become critical for organizations to ensure their competitiveness. This symposium targets the examination of older employees compared to younger employees regarding learning and development. It investigates the role of age with regard to learning motivation, participation in formal and informal learning activities, manifestations of informal learning, design of formal traditional and technology-based training, and training success. Beyond chronological age, this symposium also addresses subjective age and perceived relative age to the supervisor and the work group. Moreover, it analyzes the role of age stereotypes, age discrimination, and age meta-stereotypes regarding employees’ self-perceived employability and formal and informal learning. Thus, this symposium provides researchers and practitioners insights into how organizations will be able to successfully include older employees in learning and development. Possible Risks of (Meta-) Stereot...