Abstract
ABSTRACTTo cope with an increased proportion of older workers, organisations develop old-age adaptation policies. Two strategies underlie these policies: phasing out and activating. Although the existence of these strategies is widely recognised, the reasons for their presence have rarely been explored. We identify three arguments that explain the extent to which these strategies are present: profit, principles and pressures. We hypothesise that the intensity of the phasing out strategy is higher when it is profitable and easy to replace older workers, when employer's age norms support the principle of treating older workers differently, and when external pressures are high. We also hypothesise that the intensity of the activating strategy is higher when it is profitable but hard to replace older workers, when the employer's age norms reject the principle of treating older workers differently, and when external pressures are high. We use pooled regression analysis to study imputed managerial data from 5,410 organisations in seven European countries. Results confirm the importance of external pressures for the adaptation of both strategies, and of principles for activating. Although policy feasibility is important for the adaption of both strategies, the other profit variables showed mixed results. Net benefits of older workers to the organisation are only important for phasing out, and substitutability only for activating. This paper discusses the wider implications of the study.
Highlights
Throughout Europe, the proportion of older (⩾ ) employees is unprecedentedly high and, despite the approaching retirement of the baby-boom cohort, is projected to remain large
Larger organisations have more human resources (HR) expertise (Jensen and Møberg ), and shifting employees to a different job is easier if there are more posts available within an organisation (McNair, Flynn and Dutton ; Van Dalen, Henkens and Wang ). We argue that this effect is curvilinear for activating as well: if the proportion of older workers is too high, it may become harder to transfer all older workers to a better match
Our findings showed that to understand old-age adaptation policies we need to move beyond profit considerations, which have been the main focus of prior research (Conen, Henkens and Schippers ; Fleischmann, Koster and Schippers )
Summary
Throughout Europe, the proportion of older (⩾ ) employees is unprecedentedly high and, despite the approaching retirement of the baby-boom cohort, is projected to remain large Many European countries have raised the statutory retirement age or are debating this issue, implying an even larger proportion of older workers (Fleischmann et al ) Compared to their younger counterparts, older employees are generally assumed to have different strengths and weaknesses (ArmstrongStassen and Cattaneo ; Conen, Henkens and Schippers ; Jensen and Møberg ; Loretto and White a, b; Steinberg et al ). Because of these marked differences, human resources (HR) policies need to take into account the age structure of the personnel. It has been found that old-age adaptation policies can influence employee motivation, productivity and retirement intention, and that the impact of focusing on older workers depends strongly on which policies are implemented (Bal, Kooij and De Jong ; De Grip, Fouarge and Montizaan ; Hewitt )
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