Dissertation_Paula Aleksandrowicz_12 ... - Jacobs University

espective improvements in several HRM fields including hiring policy, the discontinuance
of early exit pathways or making them less favourable for workers as a disincentive to early
withdrawal. A ´negative reaction´ to institutional changes will mean a perpetuation or
extension of an early retirement policy or “instrument substitution” (Casey 1989) when
hitherto pursued procedures are no longer feasible. Finally, under ´no reaction´ such cases
will be subsumed where the status quo is preserved and no change in firm agency is visible.
I will proceed from one reform element to another.
Polish firms have not yet reacted positively to the expiry of early retirement pensions
in ´special´ working conditions and early retirement pensions for women at the end of 2008.
Maybe a reason for this was that the government has postponed legislation on bridging
pensions by six years, and that bridging pensions shall replace early retirement pensions at
least for some people working under health-harming conditions and retiring under the old
pension system. I made out only one positive reaction – a firm introduced extended health
care services and plans to focus on behavioural prevention in the future as a contribution to
the prolongation of working life.
Several negative reactions to the law on early retirement pensions were visible – firms
dismiss workers for operational reasons so that they can make use of pre-retirement
benefits. That way, the blocked pathway via early retirement is compensated for by utilising
another pathway. A personnel manager from a dairy company summarised that strategy as
follows: “The pension system determines the means of terminating the work contract in a
situation of forced downsizing.” Polish firms cannot afford to open up new early retirement
pathways, but some of them set incentives for the use of still available options and offer an
enlarged severance payment or bridging payments as a financial incentive amounting up to
12 monthly salaries. Other firms resorted to ´no reaction´.
The lowering of pre-retirement benefits and worsened conditions of their receipt have
exerted a larger impact upon Polish companies. Reasons were personnel reductions (the
entitlement to pre-retirement benefits is based on dismissals) and the greater pool of entitled
workers. Also here, firms had used the opportunity to send workers on pre-retirement
benefits before they were cut in mid-2004. The firms did it out of concern for the income
level of their workers, but also due to the unwillingness of older workers to accept lowered
benefits which could have thwarted the future downsizing plans of companies. Thus, many
older workers were released in advance, and the legislation generated unintended
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