Dissertation_Paula Aleksandrowicz_12 ... - Jacobs University

4.2.2. Overall human resource management strategy
I will start this section with the definition of older workers given by the interviewed
personnel managers and employee representatives. Afterwards, I will describe the overall
orientation of personnel policy with regard to the age of workers (age-blind, favouring
younger workers, favouring older workers) and its main focus (e.g., personnel reductions,
know-how transfer, health management). I will also present firms which have an age
management policy, which takes into account the ageing of the workforce. Age
management may be pursued in singular areas, e.g. in recruitment, or take the shape of an
integrated age management strategy (Frerichs/Sporket 2007: 8).
Older workers, the personnel policy towards whom I am studying, were defined
differently by the German interviewees. The most popular criterion was calendar age (11
answers). The interviewees named the age of 50, 55, and even 40 and 45. The age threshold
was often related to the firm-specific situation (10 entries) – where job tasks required a
physically or mentally able person and contributed to the early wear and tear of workers, or
the personnel practice in such fields as further training, recruitment or promotion
discriminated against workers of a certain age and turned them into ´older workers´
relatively early. In many cases, both the managers and works councils had the same idea of
the old-age threshold. That is, the firm practice which excludes or includes workers of a
certain age acquires an institutional status which shapes the life courses of workers (Mayer
2001: 164) and contributes to the ´chronologisation´ of the life course (Kohli et al. 1983:
24).
German interviewees were hesitant with answering directly the question about problems
or chances connected with older workers in the firm. Only a few named assets or drawbacks
of that age group. ´Expert know-how´ was the only asset named by five interviewees, and
negative characteristics were mentioned by ten persons – lower mobility, lower ability and
willingness to learn new things, lower motivation, lower interest to deal with new,
innovative ideas, worse health status, lower performance, or the existence of seniority
rulings granted independent of actual performance. Those opinions are in accord with
arguments of neo-classical labour market theories which explain the worse position of older
persons on the labour market (e.g. Soltwedel/Spinanger 1976). (Some experts qualified their
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