Marjorie Armstrong-Stassen

Adapting training for older employees

Purpose – The workforce is aging in all industrialized nations and the retention of older workers will become one of the dominant issues in the coming decades. Training is an important component of retention and the availability of training is critical for retaining older workers. Design/methodology/approach – Studies conducted in 2001 and 2003 assessed the extent to which Canadian organizations are adapting their training practices to respond to the aging workforce. Human resource executives were asked the extent to which their organization was currently engaging in training practices targeting older managerial and professional employees.Findings – Organizations were most likely to be providing access to training and retraining, but fewer than 10 percent of the organizations in 2003 were highly engaged in doing this. Organizations were less likely to be adjusting training methods to accommodate the needs of older employees. There was little attempt to provide age awareness training to managers of older e...

The Effect of Gender and Organizational Level on How Survivors Appraise and Cope with Organizational Downsizing

This study examined the influence of gender and organizational level on how survivors appraise, cope with, and emotionally react to organizational downsizing involving across-the-board workforce reductions. Study participants included female clerical employees, male and female technicians, and male first-level supervisors employed at a facility of a major corporation in the telecommunications industry. When male and female technicians were compared, the only significant difference was for perceived injustice, with the female technicians perceiving greater procedural and distributive injustice. There were significant differences across organizational levels for procedural injustice, sense of powerlessness, positive thinking, direct action, and help-seeking coping. The findings indicate that intervention strategies designed to help survivors adjust to organizational downsizing should be tailored to meet the diverse needs of different groups of survivors.

Designated redundant but escaping lay‐off: A special group of lay‐off survivors

A 3-year longitudinal panel study compared employees who had been declared redundant (N =49) in the initial downsizing stage, but who remained in the organization, and employees who had not been designated redundant (N =118). During the downsizing period, those who were declared redundant reported a significant decline in organizational trust and commitment compared with those who were not designated redundant. However, in the post-downsizing period those who had been designated redundant reported a significant increase in their job satisfaction, trust in the organization and organizational commitment, reporting higher levels on these factors than survivors who had not been designated redundant. There were no significant differences between the two groups for self-reported job performance, perceived job security and perceived organizational morale but there were significant time effects. Perceived job security showed a dramatic increase at Time 3 following the involuntary departure phase of the downsizing and continued to increase significantly, so that perceived job security in the post-downsizing period was significantly higher than during any of the three downsizing phases. Survivors reported a significant decline in job performance in the early phases of the downsizing and in the post-downsizing period 3 years later job performance remained slightly below the initial level. Although there was a significant increase in perceived organizational morale in the post-downsizing period, the level of perceived morale continued to be below the mid-point of the scale. The level of organizational trust showed a similar trend indicating that downsizing has a long-term negative effect on these two variables.

Production workers' reactions to a plant closing: The role of transfer, stress, and support

This study investigated the reactions of Canadian unionized production workers following a plant closing announcement. Workers who had been transferred reported significantly greater job security, more trust in the company, greater commitment to the company, and higher job performance than workers who remained at the plant. They also reported less trust in their union than the remaining workers. Perceived supervisor support was positively related to company trust and company commitment and perceived union support was positively associated with union trust and union commitment. High stress appraisal (perceived injustice and job insecurity) was associated with increased strain, lower job performance, reduced trust in the company, and reduced company commitment, but had no significant effect on the union-related outcomes. The implications of these findings for companies and unions are discussed.

Determinants and consequences of burnout: a cross-cultural comparison of Canadian and Jordanian nurses.

We compared the determinants and consequences of burnout for Canadian (N = 586) and Jordanian (N = 263) registered nurses working in a hospital setting. LISREL 7 software was used to perform a path analysis testing hypothesized relationships between job satisfaction dimensions (supervision, hospital identification, kind of work, amount of work, physical work conditions, rewards, and career future) and burnout and intention to quit. For both Canadian and Jordanian nurses, kind of work, amount of work, and career future were important determinants of burnout. Career future and burnout (emotional exhaustion) were associated with intention to quit on the basis of the highly similar results across the two samples, we propose that a universal theoretical model of the determinants and consequences of burnout among nurses may be plausible.

Antecedents of older workers' motives for continuing to work

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify demographic and work‐related antecedents of the motives that influence the decision of older workers to remain in the workforce.Design/methodology/approach – A cross‐sectional study was conducted with three groups of respondents aged 50‐70 years: those in their career job (n=395); those employed in a bridge job (n=195); and those who were self‐employed (n=174).Findings – In general, the demographic variables (age, gender, marital status) predicted the financial motive for continuing to work whereas the work‐related variables (work centrality, career satisfaction, and perceived contribution/perceived reward of owning ones own business) predicted the work fulfillment and generativity motives. However, the pattern of relationships differed across the three groups of older workers.Research limitations/implications – The three groups could not be directly compared because of differences in some of the measures. Only one variable, work centrality, was a signif...

Human resource practices for mature workers — And why aren't employers using them?

Two studies were conducted to assess the extent to which organizations were engaging in HR practices targeting mature workers and the reasons why organizations may not be engaging in these practices. The participants included 284 mature workers (171 in career jobs and 113 in bridge jobs) and 426 HR executives. Overall, organizations were reported to be engaging in the HR practices to a very limited extent. There were few significant differences between career-job and bridge-job respondents. Recognition and respect practices were rated as the most important HR strategy in influencing the decision to remain in the workforce. Over three-quarters of the mature workers indicated that organizations are not engaging in practices tailored to mature employees because it is not a priority for organizations whereas just over half of the HR executives indicated their organization was not engaging in these practices due to the lack of employee interest in, and demand for, such practices.

Factors related to the career satisfaction of older managerial and professional women

Purpose – The labour force participation of older women has increased substantially in Canada. This study aims to examine the factors that are important to the career satisfaction of older managerial and professional women.Design/methodology/approach – Managerial and professional women aged 50 and above completed a questionnaire assessing their career satisfaction, individual characteristics and organization‐related factors.Findings – For managerial women, the significant predictors of career satisfaction were perceived as organizational support, job content plateauing, and health status. For professional women, the significant predictors of career satisfaction were perceived efforts by their organization to retain its older managerial and professional employees and job content plateauing.Research limitations/implications – The findings are based on a small sample and the respondents were primarily employed in the public sector. Further research is needed using larger samples and a better representation f...

The Bridge to Retirement Older Workers’ Engagement in Post-Career Entrepreneurship and Wage-and-Salary Employment

Older workers’ choice of bridging employment (self-employment and wage-and-salary employment) was surveyed. Health status was found to be the only shared factor positively influencing both work commitment and the intention to work. Other than the aforementioned, those choosing entrepreneurship or wage-and-salary employment exhibited different demographics and answered dissimilar psycho-social needs. In terms of demographics, self-employed older workers included more unmarried, female respondents, whereas significantly more married males occupied wage-and-salary positions. In terms of psycho-social factors, the commitment and intention to work in the self-employed were significantly associated with responding to needs for personal fulfilment and independence. In contrast, those choosing wage-and-salary employment were significantly responding to needs for generativity, continued contribution, work connection and new experiences.

Factors associated with job content plateauing among older workers

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify personal and work environment factors associated with the experience of job content plateauing among older workers.Design/methodology/approach – Two cross‐sectional studies, each including two samples, were conducted. In each study, one sample consisted of a diverse group of older workers and the other sample was composed of older nurses.Findings – Work centrality and learning self‐efficacy were significantly negatively related to job content plateauing especially for older managerial and professional employees. Perceived organizational support and perceived respect from the organization, supervisor, and work group members were significantly negatively related to job content plateauing for both the diverse group of older workers and older nurses.Research limitations/implications – The average level of job content plateauing was below the scale midpoint, suggesting older workers who are most susceptible to job content plateauing may have already exited the...