Agnieszka Fornalczyk

Age Management within Organizations – Employees’ Perceptions of the Phenomenon – Research Report

Abstract This article discusses the issue of age management in organizations and presents research results concerning workers’ perceptions of the phenomenon. The aim of the research was to study the perceptions of Polish employees of various professional fields, check employees’ level of knowledge of the age management issue, determine the variables differentiating this knowledge and verify whether employees consider age management to be useful and how they perceive experienced workers. The first part of the article presents concepts explaining what age management is in the context of demographic changes in European societies. Age management is a term encompassing a range of methods aiming at the possibly most effective use of human capital in organizations, irrespective of employees’ age, so that their work is efficient, profitable for the company as well as satisfying for the workers themselves. Strategies referring to age management should consider the perspectives of the company, employee, job market policy and demographic and economic situation conditions. In the later part of this article, the authors present the results of exploratory research into the level of knowledge of age management, the way it is perceived in organizations around Poland, mostly in international corporations. The research included employees of business and budget sectors. Respondents answered questionnaire questions by estimating, on the Likert scale, how they assess age management measures taken in their workplace, the need to use experienced workers’ potential, etc. In the authors’ opinion, because of the importance of the problem of efficient personnel management and promoting and applying age management programs, it is necessary for both employees and managers to have awareness, knowledge and positive attitude towards methods activating the potential of employees from various age ranges.