A European Network to Leverage the Multi-Age Workforce
Europe faces one of the greatest challenges of the 21st century – an aging, age-diverse workforce. In response many projects, including several other COST Actions, addressed aspects of work and/or aging. However, so far no Action has yet tackled the essential psychological and managerial aspect of work and aging. LeverAge will thus bring together the largest network worldwide of work and aging scientists and practitioners focused on Work, Organizational, and Personnel psychology and Human Resource Management (WOP/HRM).
The Action will expand science and practice on work and organizational practices for an age-diverse workforce, successful aging at work for workers of different demographics, knowledge transfer between generations, the integration of age-diverse workers at work, aging and technology at work, and late-careers and retirement.
The LeverAge COST Action will build a pan-European and global network of scientists and practitioners focused on WOP/HRM that will advance, share, and promote knowledge and implementation of evidencebased practices to fully leverage the multi-age workforce and enhance the well-being, productivity and prosperity of individuals, organizations, and societies facing profound demographic and technological change.
The Action will establish five Working Groups focusing on key topics: Work and organizational practices for an age-diverse workforce; Successful aging at work; Integration of age-diverse workers and knowledge transfer; Aging and technology at work; Career development in later life and retirement.
Specific
Objectives
To achieve the main objective, the following specific objectives shall be accomplished:
Research Coordination
- A1. To systematically identify and refine the core concepts and practice-driven research questions relevant to the role of age in the workplace, with an eye towards achieving a better understanding of work and aging issues across national and societal/cultural contexts (e.g., ITC vs. non-ITC).
- A2. To identify gaps in existing knowledge on mechanisms and moderating factors through cross-talk between multiple disciplines and stakeholders and stimulate research to address these gaps.
- A3. To initiate peer-network driven and scientist-practitioner co-created large-scale, cross-sectional, longitudinal, and/or intervention studies on workplace aging using the multiplicative effect of the network.
- S1. To create and disseminate consensus documents on the core concepts, mechanisms, contextual moderators, effective research methods, measures, and/or ethnographic/statistical approaches to best study the role of age in the workplace in each of five key topic areas that correspond to the Working Groups
- S2. To establish priorities for the next generation of research on work and aging.
- S3. To stimulate innovative ideas and the establishment of consortia to compete for competitive funding for work and aging from a WOP/HRM lens.
- P1. To promote knowledge and implementation of science-based best practices for stakeholders regarding age-inclusive organizational cultures, worker well-being, and employee management strategies for inter-generational knowledge transfer, career development, and successful aging at work.
- P2. To provide tools for organizational, career, and/or occupational health management that are evidencebased and scalable and that can be adjusted to various organizational, country, and/or social contexts.
- P3. To promote tools and strategies aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, adjusting the new emerging situation at work for people of different ages.
Capacity Building
- A4. To develop an integrative scientific network, with strong involvement of ITC participants, binding active work and aging researchers across Europe and the world at large, to foster inter-disciplinary knowledge exchange and collaboration.
- A5. To bring together academics from ITC countries and across multiple disciplines within the field of WOP/HRM, along with stakeholders, to become research partners in identifying knowledge gaps and cocreating solutions for the multi-age workforce.
- S4. To offer opportunities for interdisciplinary exchange and cooperation between research groups and with stakeholders.
- S5. To design and implement an online platform to register and disseminate ongoing research initiatives and outputs at multiple levels (science, business, policy).
- S6. To develop a scientist-practitioner online database consisting of best practice guidelines, tools and methodologies, and, with informed consent, profiles of scholars/practitioners in the science of work and aging, thereby enabling most effective translation of science to practice in the service of societal and scientific excellence.
- P4. To develop the skills of young researchers and professionals to foster effective science-practice dialogue, translating practice to science, and research to practical and evidence-based applications.
- P5. To promote and develop the next generation of researchers from relevant disciplines to study work and aging through Training Schools, conferences, and Short-Term Scientific Missions.
- P6. To develop sustainable ways of translating and disseminating scientific knowledge for practitioners and citizens by developing a social media dissemination strategy and a continually updated online library of research and policy briefs, educational videos, and practitioner toolboxes.