At the Workplace
Knowledge Sharing in the Workplace as a Way to Couteract Ageism: The Perspective of Younger Workers
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Martine Lagacé, Najat Firzly, Lise Van De Beeck
The aging workforce in many industrialized countries underlies important challenges, namely current and future labor shortages. Such challenges can be partly addressed by sustained efforts aimed at hiring younger workers, retaining older workers, and, most importantly, countering ageism. Age-based stereotypes and discrimination are indeed major barriers of workers' job satisfaction and retention. Results of studies suggest that a positive intergenerational workplace climate and knowledge sharing practices between young and older workers are efficient ways of reducing ageism toward older workers as well as increasing job satisfaction. However, such studies mainly focused on older workers. Relying on Intergroup Contact Theory, the current study postulates that a positive perception of workplace intergenerational climate as well as knowledge sharing practices increase younger workers’ awareness of ageist behaviors that target older peers. In turn, such awareness has a negative effect on young workers’ level of job satisfaction. In total, 613 Canadian participants filled an online questionnaire measuring concepts under study. Hypotheses are partially confirmed such that only knowledge sharing practices increase young workers’ awareness of ageist behaviors; however, a positive intergenerational climate does not trigger a similar effect. On the other hand, both knowledge sharing practices and the perception of a positive intergenerational climate have a direct and positive impact on younger workers’ level of job satisfaction. Findings are discussed in light of the Intergroup Contact Theory, stressing the importance of multi-age workgroups and knowledge sharing practices as ways to decrease ageist beliefs and attitudes.
Perception of Aging in the Workplace: An Example of Two German Organizations
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Tanja Kosowski
Regardless of the industry, populations are aging. Most countries observe an increase in senior people – numerically and relatively – in their population. This transformation is considered as one of the fundamental challenges in recent times. One may ask why studying aging in organizations is worthwhile. Questions related to aging are shared widely in and between organizations. This study addresses the perception of aging in two German organizations by managers, senior workers, and co-workers of other ages. The research is situated within the interpretative paradigm and made use of multiple case study method and critical case selection. Aging in organizations was researched in two different contexts. An organization with a rather high average age (45 years) of employees and an organization with a rather low average age of employees (30 years). The material collected so far does indicate the existence of some qualitative differences between the managers and co-workers in their perceptions of senior workers and aging in general. Further, the empirical material collected identifies several issues that were related to how positive or negative pictures about aging was constructed. Among these are, for example, the existence of rotating teams, mentoring programs, perceived job security, development perspective, higher overall diversity in terms of gender and nationality, reduced usage of temp workers, presence of peers, and external communication.
