Description
Increasing age diversity at work is both an opportunity and a challenge. Workers of different ages bring complementary competencies to the workplace, increasing creativity and innovation. However, age diversity also entails the risk of age based subgrouping processes, leading to frictions, mutual stereotyping, and discrimination. Research on effects of age diversity on team/organizational performance is inconclusive and needs further study.
Knowledge transfer between employees from different age groups is particularly important to sustain the (tacit) knowledge of the baby boom generation, which is retiring. Research shows that knowledge transfer in dyadic age relationships does not always function properly, but that employee motivation and specific organizational practices and cultural climates increase knowledge transfer success.
Despite this progress, significant gaps remain, as addressed below:
- When does discrimination occur, which processes lead from stereotypes to discrimination, and which specific outcomes are affected (e.g., hiring, microaggressions, well-being)?
- Which individual strategies and leadership-, team-, or organizational-level factors ensure the successful integration of, and knowledge transfer between, age-diverse individuals in teams?
- How can interventions help enhance integration of age-diverse workers and knowledge transfer, for example, by changing the cultural narrative of aging and mitigating the effects of age stereotypes?
View other WGs
Aging at work involves many age related changes in physical, cognitive, and emotional capacities and skills as well as in perceptions and social roles.
Successful aging at work refers to the proactive maintenance of, or adaptive recovery to maintain, high levels of ability and motivation to continue working throughout the lifespan.
Work in the 21st century is marked by profound changes driven by the technological revolution, digitalization, and the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI). These changes have benefits and costs for...
As the population ages, retirement transition/adjustment and retirees’ well-being have become topics of great concern for governments and organizations.