Exploring the Black Box of Managing Total Rewards for Older Professionals in the Canadian Financial Services Sector

Abstract

This study extends our knowledge about the management of older employees in the sector of financial services, which faces enormous transformational pressures (e.g., emergence of artificial intelligence, digital services). Based on the black box model of human resource management, we investigate how executives at 16 major financial institutions manage their total rewards to motivate their older professionals to stay at work longer. Top management’s views towards older professionals underlie a firm’s culture or climate, and more precisely, the extent of the perception that they are a strategic resource that needs focused management. Across firms, such adaptation (or lack thereof) is made through the following total rewards components: (1) flexibility in working time and place of work, (2) hiring of retirees, (3) hiring or promotion of older professionals, (4) role adjustment, (5) responsibilities and performance standards, (6) monetary rewards, benefits, and (7) recognition, succession planning, and support for retirement planning or preparation. The black box model should be used in future research to understand which reward components work best in which contextsto motivate older workers to stay at work longer.

What Can Motivate Me to Keep Working? Analysis of Older Finance Professionals’ Discourse Using Self-Determination Theory

“…A longitudinal study has shown that among employees over the age of 50, a perceived lack of recognition increases the odds of work exit [84]. Indeed, if openness to age diversity in the workplace is essential to keeping older workers longer, it has been shown that openness towards older employees varies greatly from one organization to another in the finance services sector, going from weak or no particular support, case-per-case support, to strong formal and informal support [85].…”