Rewarding ageing employees—means used in the public sector

Abstract

Finland along with the rest of Europe will face considerable challenges in the next five to ten years due to changing age structures. The large number of ageing and aged employees, the baby-boomers, as well as the remarkably low birth rates that have occurred ever since the beginning of the 1980s, have led to a social phenomenon never experienced before. These changes should be considered when designing and implementing human resource strategies in organisations and institutions. This study considers the rewarding of ageing employees as a function of human resource management, and moreover rewarding is considered as an important function of age management. The purpose of this study is twofold. On one hand it explored means used to reward ageing employees working in the public sector and on the other hand comparisons between age groups were made. The preliminary results indicated that employees were rewarded by the same means. In addition to pay, employees mentioned that they had been rewarded with non-financial rewards e.g. praise and recognition, interesting job assignments and opportunities to develop themselves.