Dissertation_Paula Aleksandrowicz_12 ... - Jacobs University

The interview guideline for my firm case studies included topics which centred on
measures applied at firm level when an older worker was not able to longer cope with the
demands of his/her usual workplace. Sheltered workplaces (e.g. gatekeepers, tool
distributors, cleaners) were used by many firms in the sample for the re-deployment of
work-incapacitated workers and newly hired severely disabled workers. In the course of
personnel reductions and outsourcing, most of those easier workplaces have been closed.
The studied firms had divergent approaches how to compensate for the loss of those
workplaces and to deal with incapacitated (older) workers:
1) ´No reaction´ or ´wait and see´, and as a consequence, a policy of externalisation – when
first signs of a health impairment occur, workers are shifted to easier workplaces, if
available, and released on disability pensions as the last resort. (Other exit pathways are
the early retirement scheme, work incapacity pensions, early retirement pensions, social
assistance, paid/unpaid leave or an outplacement scheme.) The working conditions for
blue-collar workers in those firms are on overall rather unsuitable for work until the
67th year. Some of the firms provide legal support to workers who apply for a work
incapacity pension. The occurrence of health impairments is seen as a natural result of
the process of ageing. The responsible persons do not seem to take into account workrelated
causes of early disability and diminished workability.
2) A policy of internalisation consisting of preventive measures in the form of
comprehensive behavioural prevention, organisational prevention, ergonomics, job
rotation or deployment of persons with impaired health in line with their capabilities so
as to still allow value-adding work. In this group, there were firms with both suitable
and unsuitable working conditions for workers in pre-retirement age.
No assessment is possible for four firms. The findings support hypothesis 3 (see section
2.2.) with regard to the economic position of the firm – all firms with externalising policies
in the field of health and integration management (Firm DE-3, Firm DE-6, Firm DE-8,
Firm DE-9, Firm DE-11) had to cut staff levels at the first or second time of the interview
and suffered from a negative development of the given branch of economy (see Table 18 in
section 4.2.6.). The hypothesis is however not supported with regard to the age structure of
the workforce.
A barrier to the prolongation of working life at firm level, pointed out by some
interviewees in food manufacturing firms, is a productivity-related limit to the improvement
128