Age as double‐edged sword among victims of customer mistreatment: A self‐esteem threat perspective

Service workers are expected to maintain high‐quality service delivery despite customer mistreatment—the poor‐quality treatment of service workers by customers—which can be demeaning and threatening to self‐esteem. Although service work is increasingly delivered by middle‐aged and older workers, very little is known about how employees across the age range navigate abuse from customers on the job. Does advancing age help or hinder service performance in reaction to customer mistreatment? Drawing on strength and vulnerability integration theory, we proposed that age paradoxically both helps and hinders performance after customer mistreatment, albeit at different stages. We tested our proposed model in a two‐sample field investigation of service workers and their supervisors using a time‐lagged, dyadic design. Results showed that age heightens the experience of self‐esteem threat but, nevertheless, dampens reactions to self‐esteem threat, leading to divergent effects on performance at different stages. Implications for age and service work, as well as aging and the sense of self, are discussed.     

Linking instructional objectives to the design of instructional environments: The Integrative Training Design Matrix

The purpose of this article is to present a system, referred to as the Integrative Training Design Matrix (ITDM), for streamlining the design of instructional environments in a way that integrates the instructional design elements commonly discussed in the scientific literature. This system expands the use of job-analytic information to better link needs assessment to the design of instructional environments. Specifically, the ITDM shows how determining an instructional objective's standing along four training issues–extensiveness of training, location of training, nature of transfer performance, and learning difficulty–yields a comprehensive plan for designing instructional environments. These plans involve design elements such as trainee-to-trainer ratio, feedback delivery, hands-on practice, modeling, structure of practice, amount of training, meaningfulness, pre- and post-training interventions, and general training methods. The ITDM then shows how organization and person analyses can be targeted to support these design elements.     

Firm foundations? Contingent labour and employers' provision of training in the UK construction sector

Based on an original survey of the UK construction industry this article examines the training disadvantages faced by contingent labour. This article addresses two key questions: first, is the provision of training different for directly employed labour and different forms of contingent labour? Second, what structural and organisational factors shape the provision of training to different contingent labour forms? The article finds that fewer firms provide training for agency, self‐employed and subcontract labour, compared to directly employed workers. Training for subcontract labour seems to reflect a longer‐term perspective towards the use of this labour form, while decisions to train agency and self‐employed labour appears to be driven by more short‐term considerations.     

Who is considered an ‘older worker'? Extending our conceptualisation of ‘older’ from an organisational decision maker perspective

A refinement of the construct of age, specifically ‘older’, is recognised as a critical measurement concern for experts in both ageing research and policy formation. In this context, we set out to both chronologically define an ‘older worker’ and to identify on what basis the age of ‘older’ is determined. In doing so, we draw on open‐ended survey data (collected in 2011) from a sample of 407 organisational decision makers across all industries in Ireland. Our focus was specifically on the perspective of organisational decision makers because these individuals will be instrumental in facing the challenges associated with workforce ageing. The results show that workers are considered as ‘older’ at a younger age than might be expected and that decision makers conceptualise workers as ‘older’ using various approaches in the organisational context. Our findings contribute to the literature in three ways: firstly, by providing an important empirically derived understanding of the term ‘older worker’; secondly, by empirically examining previously suggested ‘possible’ indicators of age; and thirdly, by demonstrating that these indicators are conceptually and empirically distinct, advancing theory on the concept of age in the workplace.     

Improving the psychosocial environment for older trainees: Technological training as an illustration

Currently, there is a higher proportion of older workers in the labor force and the applicant pool than there have been in previous generations as a result of the Baby Boomer demographic bubble. Regarding these older workers as a potentially valuable resource and developing their skills accordingly may help employers fulfill their labor needs in an increasingly competitive market. Relative to younger workers, there is limited information in the literature with respect to the design of a psychologically and socially supportive training environment for this particular demographic. Our intent in this review is to provide a research-based framework for understanding the specific psychological and social needs of older trainees. We first examine the impact of ageism and age-related stereotype threat in the learning environment, and ways to reduce their negative influence on training. We then turn to a consideration of the motivational needs of the older trainee, and the unique ways to foster positive levels of training motivation and self-efficacy. At each step of our discussion, we use technological training as a specific example of these training challenges and remedies. This training domain was chosen because of its increasing relevance to job acquisition for older applicants and to the career development of mature employees. Practical implications for theories and practice tailored to older learners are emphasized.     

Sweatshops,Opportunity Costs,and Non‐Monetary Compensation: Evidence from El Salvador1

Using evidence from field interviews, this article examines the alternative employment opportunities of thirty‐one sweatshop factory workers in El Salvador and their perceptions about what types of non‐monetary benefits they receive in their current employment. Interview subjects provide insights into the benefits of their own and peers' employments, their next‐best alternative employment, and other aspects of total compensation. We find that workers perceive factory employment to provide more desirable compensation along several margins.     

Older and More Engaged: The Mediating Role of Age‐Linked Resources on Work Engagement

In the era of a graying workforce, individuals and their employers are concerned with the impact of the graying workforce on the level of engagement at work. Contrary to the myths about older workers being less engaged, statistics have shown that the level of engagement is higher as people age. Within the broad framework of conservation of resources theory in the area of work engagement, the current study aims to clarify how older workers are more engaged at work than younger workers. Building upon socioemotional selectivity theory and continuity theory from a life‐span perspective, we explain how individuals gain more resources as they age, including the abilities to regulate emotion and to maintain a career identity. We argue that this positive relationship between age and resources explains why older people have high levels of work engagement. We tested our predictions with a sample of 613 workers in the United States. The study demonstrates that well‐regulated emotion and strong commitment to career mediate the positive relationship between age and work engagement simultaneously. These findings contribute to the understanding of an aging workforce's engagement in the workplace. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Employers' attitudes,practices and policies towards older workers

Despite policy emphasis on the importance of older workers (i.e. those aged 50 and above) to current and future labour markets, relatively little is known about the ways in which employers' attitudes, policies and practices influence their recruitment and retention. Drawing upon previous work by Taylor and Walker, this article reports qualitative research among employers across Scotland, which sought to investigate further the relationships between employers' policies, practices and attitudes towards older workers. The findings indicate a complex set of relationships, and challenge the simplistic causal link between attitudes and practice. The conclusions discuss the implications of these findings for the future employment of older workers, and assess the extent to which the forthcoming age discrimination legislation in the UK is likely to tackle discriminatory attitudes, practices and policies.     

The Value of Work: Rethinking Labor Productivity in Times of COVID-19 and Automation

This article provides a new perspective on the value of work and recommends ways to respond to labor market failures exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and by increased automation. We consider the human right to work, the dangers of pursuing short-term efficiency, and the use of the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals as a framework for inclusive economic innovation. We conclude with recommended policies to build forward and achieve inclusive development.     

An event history approach to the evaluation of training,recruitment and employment programmes

In this paper I evaluate a number of training, recruitment and employment programmes. The evaluation method is a combination of a quasi-experimental design (a simple pre-treatment-post-treatment design) and a stochastic process model to describe the response variables. I conclude that the programmes have no effect on older workers. Female and minority workers benefit most from the programmes. The training programmes are less effective than the recruitment programmes, which are in turn less effective than the employment programmes.     

The implications of the national minimum wage for training in small firms

This article investigates the extent to which small firms' training practices have altered since the introduction of the national minimum wage (NMW). Low pay is particularly widespread among small firms and they are thus likely to have been disproportionately affected by the NMW. Drawing on survey data collected from 258 establishments, the study provides information about training practices and identifies the steps that employers have taken to offset the impact of the NMW. The study also assesses the extent to which firms have made use of lower ‘development’ rates for young workers and new adult recruits, and whether this has been associated with an increase in training activity. The findings suggest that the NMW has provided a positive boost to training in some cases, although this has primarily come about as a result of efforts by firms to offset increases in labour costs, as opposed to take‐up of the development rate.     

No news is good news? Evaluating new pay systems

The evaluation of the impact of changes in reward systems is a common recommendation in the personnel practitioner literature, but little has been written about how and to what extent practitioners themselves evaluate. This article therefore focuses on the activities of HR managers who have introduced new pay systems, not on academic studies of reward system change. Face‐to‐face interviews were conducted in 15 large, unionised organisations in England between 2000 and 2002. The study found that little formal evaluation of changes in pay and grading systems had been carried out and that managers expressed considerable scepticism about the evaluation process. They relied heavily on informal or anecdotal feedback, and appeared to have little psychological incentive to evaluate. The article suggests explanations for this lack of formal evaluation, drawing on the management decision‐making literature, and recommends how changes in reward systems should be evaluated.     

Managing ‘difference’: understanding age diversity in practice

This paper seeks to explore how age diversity is characterised, understood and managed by HR managers responsible for its implementation. With businesses competing at a global level and demographic trends changing the landscape of the labour market, the diversity approach to managing workplace equality has been heralded as the answer to the political and moral challenges in marrying external competition with internal workplace equality. Nowhere has this been more influential than in recent debates concerning older workers in the labour market, and yet, how age‐related HR practices relate to the underpinning philosophies of diversity has not yet been explored in any depth. Drawing from interview data with HR managers from a range of industry backgrounds, this article explores the inherent tensions faced when discussing age as a diversity issue, and the persistent effects of larger social norms related to ageing. By focusing on the concept of ‘difference’ as a key tenet of diversity, the challenges in ensuring equality while being aware of contradictory messages from both inside and outwith the organisations play a key role in age diversity in practice. This leads to a discussion about the more subtle practices involved in the workplace implementation of age diversity and how awareness of inherent biases may challenge age inequality within organisations.     

Perceived HRM practices,organizational commitment,and voluntary early retirement among late‐career managers

Using a sample of 514 French late‐career managers representing a variety of occupations and organizations, we investigated the relations among perceived HRM practices, organizational commitment, and voluntary early retirement. We found that the provision of training opportunities was associated with the most favorable outcomes. It was related to higher affective and high‐sacrifice commitment, lower lack of alternatives commitment, and reduced voluntary early retirement. On the other hand, we found that flexible working conditions and the assignment of older workers to new roles (for example, mentor or coach) did not have the expected positive effects. In addition, our results highlight the importance of disentangling the components of continuance commitment, as high‐sacrifice commitment was associated with reduced likelihood of voluntary early retirement, while lack of alternatives commitment had the opposite effect. These findings suggest that voluntary early retirement should be incorporated as a major outcome in future organizational behavior research. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Tackling age discrimination in employment in Singapore

In a country with an ageing work-force, a decline in the number of new entrants to the labour market and an acute labour shortage, it would be reasonable to assume that employers would encourage older workers to remain in employment for as long as possible. In the case of Singapore, however, private sector employers often retired employees at age 55 and hired younger workers in their place. In many cases older workers re-hired had to accept lower pay and lower grade jobs. In an attempt to tackle this sort of age discrimination in employment, the government passed the Retirement Age Act in 1993. Prior to its enactment, the government urged employers to raise the retirement age voluntarily, but the response was poor, especially in the non-unionized sector. This paper argues that employers resisted the extension of the retirement age because they perceived older workers in stereotypical terms. The main issues which gave rise to the Retirement Age legislation are discussed. So also is the possible impact of the legislation on some HRM practices. The paper also proposes some future directions for research on older workers in Singapore.     

An exploration of older worker flexible working arrangements in smaller firms

This article explores flexible working arrangements (FWAs) for older workers in smaller UK firms. We address three questions: how far older workers need and value FWAs, the type of FWAs they need, and whether smaller firms can offer these FWAs. We draw on 46 semi‐structured interviews from six smaller case study firms to present a qualitative exploration of both owner‐manager and (under‐researched) worker perspectives. We evidence the offer and importance of temporal and work‐role FWAs, together with the use of i‐deals and ad hoc FWAs in meeting the needs of this diverse group. We make three contributions: first, theoretically, in arguing for an extended definition of FWAs and understanding formality of offer; second, to practice, in highlighting FWA mechanisms appropriate to older workers; third, to policy, in questioning the effectiveness of both the business case approach to older worker FWAs in smaller firms and policy's positioning of older workers as a homogeneous group.     

Time and the Entrepreneurial Journey: The Problems and Promise of Studying Entrepreneurship as a Process

We examine the growing disconnect between the process‐oriented conception of entrepreneurship taught in the classroom and theorized about in premier journals and the variance‐oriented conception of entrepreneurship that characterizes empirical studies of the phenomenon. We propose that a shift in inquiry from entrepreneurship as an act to entrepreneurship as a journey could facilitate process‐oriented research by initiating a dialogue about the nature of the entrepreneurial journey, when it has begun and ended, whether it might be productively subdivided into variables or events, and what if anything remains constant throughout the process. Finally, we propose that a clearer understanding of the entrepreneurial journey is necessary to distinguish the field horizontally from research on creativity and strategy, and vertically from research on more practical business functions or more abstract systems‐level concepts.     

Age‐related differences in the relations between individualised HRM and organisational performance: a large‐scale employer survey

The current study aimed to investigate the relationship between individualised HRM practices and several measures of organisational performance, including the moderating role of employee age in these relationships. A large‐scale representative study among 4,591 organisations in the Netherlands showed support for the relationships between individualised HR practices with organisational performance. Employee age moderated the relationships between the use of individualised practices and sickness absence and turnover, such that organisations with a high percentage of older workers benefited from work schedule practices, and organisations with high percentage of younger workers benefited from development practices.     

Reducing Organizational Politics in Performance Appraisal: The Role of Coaching Leaders for Age‐Diverse Employees

We examined whether a supervisor's coaching leadership style predicts the perception of organizational politics in performance appraisal (OPPA) reported by the collaborators. Additionally, we drew on social cognition and motivational life‐span development theories to hypothesize age‐related differences in perceived OPPA and its link with the coaching leadership style. Using hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) on a sample of 576 employees and 112 leaders, we found that coaching leaders are perceived as less manipulative in their performance ratings, especially by older employees. This article includes a discussion of the implications these results have for performance management of an age‐diverse workforce. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Pensions, non-discrimination policies, and the employment of older workers

This paper analyzes firms' decisions to hire older workers. We model, the role of pensions in back-loading pay for specifically trained workers. We then evaluate the effects, of imposing age discrimination rules and non-discriminatory fringe benefit rules, and analyze the consequences for the firm's decision to hire older versus younger individuals. The model predicts that defined benefit pension plans deter the hiring of older workers, but only if hired for entry level position. The reason is f hat the wages of this group cannot be lowered enough to pay for the benefits. Data from a new survey of employers are used to test this hypothesis. The findings show that a more generous defined benefit pension plan reduces employment prospects for older, entry level workers. Employers offering defined benefit pension, plans employ older workers, but tend not to hire them into entry level jobs.