Jaap Oude Mulders

Organizations’ Ways of Employing Early Retirees: The Role of Age-Based HR Policies

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY We examine whether from an organizational perspective it is possible to distinguish different ways of employing early retirees and explore how the employment of early retirees is related to the application of 4 age-based human resource (HR) policies, namely demotion, offering training opportunities to older workers, offering early retirement, and allowing flexible working hours. DESIGN AND METHODS We perform a latent class analysis on a sample of 998 Dutch organizations in order to categorize them based on 3 dimensions of their employment of early retirees. We then run a multinomial logistic regression to relate the employment of early retirees to the 4 age-based HR policies. RESULTS We distinguish 4 types of organizations based on their way of employing early retirees: nonusers (52.6%), users for mainly standard work (20.8%), users for mainly nonstandard work (9.8%), and users for standard and nonstandard work (16.7%). We find that organizations that apply demotion, offer early retirement, and allow flexible working hours are more likely to be users for mainly standard work. Also, organizations that do not offer early retirement are less likely to employ early retirees. IMPLICATIONS Age-based HR policies, especially demotion, offering early retirement, and allowing flexible working hours, are conducive to the employment of early retirees for mainly standard work. Broader implementation of these policies may provide opportunities for older workers to make a more gradual transition from work to retirement.

Managers' interview invitation decisions about older job applicants : Human capital, economic conditions and job demands

ABSTRACT Older job applicants are vulnerable to stereotype-related bias in the recruitment process. In the current study, we examined how managers’ job interview invitation decisions regarding older job applicants are influenced by applicants’ human capital-related characteristics, general economic conditions and managers’ perceptions of changes in organisational job demands. Data were collected in two waves of a vignette experiment, three years apart, among a sample of 211 Dutch managers from various organisations. Multi-level analysis showed that managers were more likely to invite older job applicants who had matching qualifications, were employed at the time of application and came with recommendations. In addition, managers’ propensity to invite older job applicants was higher in better economic conditions. The effects of recommendations were moderated by the general economic conditions and changes in organisational job demands, such that a recommendation from another employer was especially influential in bad economic conditions, while a recommendation from an internal employee was especially influential when job demands had increased. The results emphasise the importance of considering the organisational and economic context in understanding the recruitment of older workers. The findings also suggest that older workers, employers and policy makers should invest in older workers’ human capital to protect their employability.

Managers’ Interview Decisions About Older Job Applicants: Effects of Human Capital-Related Characteristics, General Economic Conditions, and Changes in Job Demands

Older job applicants are vulnerable to stereotype related bias in the recruitment process. In the current study, we examined how managers’ job interview invitation decisions regarding older job applicants are influenced by applicants’ human capital-related characteristics, general economic conditions and managers’ experiences of changes in job demands. Data were collected with two waves of a vignette experiment, three years apart, among a sample of 211 Dutch managers from various organisations. Multilevel analysis showed that managers were more likely to invite older job applicants who had matching qualifications, were employed at the time of application, and came with recommendations. In addition, managers’ propensity to invite older job applicants was higher in better economic conditions. The effects of recommendations were moderated by the general economic conditions and changes in job demands, such that a recommendation from another employer was especially influential in bad economic conditions, while a recommendation from an internal employee was especially influential when job demands had increased. The results emphasize the importance of considering the organisational and economic context in understanding the recruitment of older workers. The findings also suggest that older workers, employers, and policy makers should invest in older workers’ human capital to protect their employability.