An interactional perspective on age management for prolonged working life

Abstract

There is a need for an expanded perspective on age management that draws attention to the interaction between employers and employees in order to understand organisational capa-bility for a prolonged working life. The way in which workplaces are managed is of central importance to people’s ability and willingness to continue to work. At the individual level, the timing of retirement depends on the individual’s health, job satisfaction, competence, social inclusion and family life, as well as pension benefits. These are conclusions from previous studies on age management, and they indicate that the individual’s decision to stay in a workplace and ability to work longer depends on a complex interaction between the per-son’s preferences and health as well as social networks and work environment (see e.g. Brooke & Taylor, 2005; Furunes, Mykletun & Solem, 2011). Previous studies and perspectives on age management have also noted that managers’ conceptions of older workers and employers’ interests in retaining older employees are of great importance for when an employee retire. Central to such assumptions is the managers’ views of older people’s knowledge and know-how, conceptions of older employees’ ability to develop as well as normative conceptions of what is an appropriate retirement age. For example, Henkens (2005) has shown that managers often assume that older people find it difficult to learn new things and accept organisational changes. Another study shows that employers have interest in and motivation to implement organisational changes to adapt the conditions for