Organisation‐level policy towards older workers in Poland

Abstract

Perek‐Białas J, Turek K. Organisation‐level policy towards older workers in Poland This article presents the results of studies on organisation‐level strategies towards older workers in Poland. The analyses were based on a national and representative sample survey of 1,037 companies (public and private sectors) – the first of its kind in Poland. The question of the survey was: How do Polish employers deal with an ageing workforce and how can management tap into their potential through various measures? The analyses revealed three different strategies: (i) improvement of productivity – trying to improve the skills and competencies of older workers, increase their effective use of and adjustment to the workplace, plan individual career moves and avoid work burn‐out; (ii) the pushing out of older workers – attempting to rid the workplace of older workers as quickly as possible; (iii) accommodation and reduction of labour costs – slowly preparing senior workers for retirement and creating conditions that would meet their actual needs.

Promoting a higher retirement age: A prospect‐theoretical approach

“…The latter can be a particularly strong impetus leading to early retirement, regardless of workers' willingness to remain economically active (Ebbinghaus, ). As Perek‐Białas and Turek () noted in a recent study on company‐level policies towards older workers in Poland, firms are often not able to use the potential of older workers and are not willing to invest in their retraining. Under such conditions, promoting a longer working life among workers is likely to have very limited effect.…”

Understanding old-age adaptation policies in Europe: the influence of profit, principles and pressures

“…We use a dummy for each country (reference: Poland) to control for both the clustered nature of the data and different national contexts. For sector, we follow the established division between the services and trade sector and the public sector (reference category: industries and construction sector) (Jensen and Møberg 2012; Karpinska, Henkens and Schippers 2013 a ), as substantial sector differences in old-age adaptation policy implementation have been found (De Vries, Gründemann and Van Vuuren 2001; Hewitt 2009; Perek-Bialas and Turek 2012; Ybema, Geuskens and Oude Hengel 2009). In terms of organisational composition, we include the proportions of female, part-time, high-skilled and unskilled workers, which have yielded mixed effects in comparable studies (Jensen and Møberg 2012; Principi, Fabbietti and Lamura 2015; Remery et al 2003; Van Dalen, Henkens and Schippers 2010 a ; Ybema, Geuskens and Oude Hengel 2009).…”

“…Phasing out measures make working life easier for older workers, but they also increasingly separate older workers from being a ‘core worker’. Some authors distinguish three strategies with respect to older workers: accommodating, exit and activating practices (Perek-Bialas and Turek 2012; Van Dalen, Henkens and Wang 2015). Phasing out covers both the accommodating and exit practices, since the goals of those two are strongly overlapping, and the policies are alike indeed.…”

“…Policies involving job rotation can also increase productivity of colleagues by transferring knowledge between working teams (Streb, Voelpel and Leibold 2008). The strategy of activating the relationship between older workers and their organisation has its background in employment-related elements of the ‘active ageing’ discourse (Perek-Bialas and Turek 2012), which gained traction in the 1990s. Its philosophy and policies focus on enabling, empowering and motivating older people, which increases their contributions to society (Frerichs et al 2012; Walker 2006).…”

“…Usually, marginal costs of HR policies are lower when they apply to more workers (Fleischmann, Koster and Schippers 2015; Loretto and White 2006 a ). Larger organisations can more easily replace workers (Van Dalen, Henkens and Wang 2015) and are indeed known to adopt more phasing out policies (Armstrong-Stassen and Cattaneo 2010; Perek-Bialas and Turek 2012; De Vries, Gründemann and Van Vuuren 2001; Ybema, Geuskens and Oude Hengel 2009). A greater proportion of older workers has also been found to benefit phasing out policies (Armstrong-Stassen and Cattaneo 2010; Fleischmann, Koster and Schippers 2015; Van Dalen, Henkens and Wang 2015; Ybema, Geuskens and Oude Hengel 2009).…”