Background: Working life today is characterized by acceleration and intensification due to social, and particularly technological, acceleration affecting the whole of society. These phenomena also affect working life by intensifying job demands, possibly imposing new job stressors on the workforce. At the same time workforce is aging, raising a question how older employees manage to cope with these work life changes. Methods: This study examined intensified job demands and their effects on occupational well-being from the age perspective utilizing Finnish survey data from upper white-collar workers (N = 2,200). Data was analyzed using multivariate analysis of covariance and hierarchical regression analyses. Results: The findings show that older employees experienced more work intensification and intensified knowledge-and skill-related learning demands, whereas younger employees experienced more intensified career-related planning and decision-making demands. Intensified job demands were related to occupational well-being (job burnout, work engagement), but were rarely age-specific. Conclusion: Aging does not necessarily mean higher intensified job demands, yet work intensification and intensified learning demands can be more common among older employees. However, more research is needed concerning the relationships between aging, intensified job demands and occupational well-being as empirical evidence is still scarce.

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The growing body of research suggests that leadership is not among the most attractive career goals, especially for the younger work force. However, the need for leadership has not diminished. To shed light on the "problem of supply", this study addresses the question of why high-potential individuals (i.e., non-leaders) do not pursue leadership positions by focusing on worries about leadership (WAL) and errorrelated strain. We had two aims: (1) to identify different profiles of WAL among highly educated professionals, and (2) to explore whether their error strain and leadership career intentions differ among the identified WAL profiles. Data were gathered from 955 highly educated Finnish employees representing different sectors. WAL was measured by a three-dimensional scale consisting of worries about failure, work-life imbalance, and harming others. Based on the Latent Profile Analysis, six WAL profiles emerged: (1) Average-WAL (37% of respondents), (2) Low-WAL (34%), (3) High-WAL (6%), (4) Failure-sensitive (9%), (5) Imbalance-sensitive (4%) and ( 6) Harm-sensitive (11%). Professionals in the Low-WAL profile reported the lowest error strain, whereas employees in the profiles of High-WAL and Failure-sensitive reported the highest error strain. Employees in the Low-WAL profile were more willing to pursue a leadership career in an unfamiliar organization compared to employees in other profiles. In addition, employees within the Low-WAL profile were more willing to pursue a leadership career in an unfamiliar organization compared to their home organization. Implications of our findings and future directions are discussed.

Worries about leadership among highly educated professionals: Associations with career aspirations and personal work goals. We investigated how highly educated professionals’ worries about leadership roles relate to their career aspirations and personal work goals. Altogether 1151 professionals without leadership positions participated in the survey study. Participants with a high number of leadership-related worries were not planning to pursue leadership positions. Instead, their goals included increasing personal well-being or ending their career. Vice versa, participants with least leadership-related worries strived for career advancement. These findings indicate that worries about leadership should be acknowledged in education and training programs and in career planning, so that worries would not prevent motivated and suitable individuals from seeking leadership positions.