EUROPEAN PAPERS ON THE NEW WELFARE

5. Age Management in Business

In companies not so long ago, the elderly worker and his experience were considered a heritage to be defended and protected; loyalty to the company was considered an advantage and the worker who stayed in the same company for a long period was rewarded, also in a tangible manner.
The reasons for this attitude lay in the fact that changes in labour processes and technologies were relatively slow, and as a result it was often the worker’s experience that added value to the simple technical competence. Moreover, through the daily contact between the elderly worker (expert) and the young one (novice), acquired expertise was transferred, passing from hand to hand and guaranteeing that this recurring capitalization fuelled that process of continuous improvement that is indispensable to the productive system.
Even when innovations were introduced this kind of hierarchical process was respected so as not to devalue or exclude those already working in the company.
The situation has changed significantly in recent years, when the technological evolution and its applications have occurred at much faster rhythms, considerably changing working practices, the management of production processes and business management. These rhythms have absolutely no respect for the physiological rhythms of the passage from one generation to another, creating sudden crises of obsolescence for the elderly worker, crises that are often ultimately translated into early lay-offs of the company workers.
The factors having had the greatest bearing on these changes are different in nature and importance.
First of all technology, especially that dealing with information and communication (ICT), which has literally taken the place of some important roles in the organisation of labour, significantly improving performance and work times. The second factor concerns delocalisation and internationalisation which have projected companies into global space, with regard to both the supplies markets and that dealing with the sale of products. Thus production cycles have taken on new shapes and have been freed from the conditioning imposed by the oneness of spaces. This, however, requires new knowledge and new tools (languages, cultural models, values etc.) which cannot derive from the experiences of the elderly since they require new approaches and new educational programmes. When it comes to these the young have an advantage over the elderly workers. Lifestyles also change because travel and moves from one country to another are no longer the exception, but become, somehow, part of the production process.
The extension of spaces and the opening up of markets have also fuelled the migration movement with easily observable consequences, especially on labour costs and on backbreaking jobs. From a certain point onwards the migrant worker became a competitive factor in the global market, because he was able to reduce the cost of production and increase the profit margin.
The final factor is to be found in the structural changes in companies and in ownership arrangements, both through the arrival of a new managerial role, which has redefined the relationship between businessman and manager, and through the new role played by financing capital in the business system, which has allowed the by-passing of some presuppositions to development, of which the elderly were champions.
Once again the influence that these factors exercise on how companies treat their elderly workers varies depending on the geographic area and hence on local cultures concerned, as well as to company dimensions. It is impossible, therefore to depict the situation using a univocal framework. Rather what should be underlined is the interest that the argument has in the ageing processes perspective. Indeed it can happen that a person of fifty, not yet of retirement age, is removed from the labour market and his experience, developed over a working career, is hidden or literally destroyed through a kind of urgent need to comply with market characteristics. Re-entry into the market at fifty is not easy and it is still harder to re-enter making use of previously developed experience. There is the risk, therefore that a state of instability and uncertainty will arise accompanied by a loss of relationships and one’s role that is basically like an early onset of ageing, with the inevitable crisis that derives from that.
In this perspective, therefore it is very important to reflect on the policies which companies set up for managing age, both in terms of how these policies can reflect on the development of the company, and for the effects they have on the elderly workers.
Within the ‘Age management’ project financed by the community initiative Equal in the Veneto Region (IT G VEN 062), a study was carried out on the position of companies in relation to age management, analysing twenty business cases, varying in kind of business and size, though all ranging from small to medium sized. By way of example some qualitative and quantitative data, gained through direct observation and from interviews with managers and owners are reported below,
The first point to note is that in the companies 7.3% of employees had already turned 55 years of age. This is an average that falls well short of employment parameters set by the European Union as an objective to be achieved, and one which reflects the critical nature of the situation.
Among the factors that determine the change in the position of elderly workers in a company the most important is technology (by 68%); delocalisation and internationalisation count for 12%, the same as the value for structural changes and ownership arrangements. Last comes the work carried out by immigrants (1.8%).
It is still more important to underline the poor perception of the problem on the part of staff managers and by the owners themselves. In 40% of the cases the problem was seen as limited to the fact that retirement will determine exit from the company, without however referring to the consequences this situation would create for the same company. A similar percentage (40%) was recorded regarding the awareness that the age factor, beyond being merely a fact of record (and so linked to retirement), represented a problem and for this reason deserved to be faced in the company.
Only 15% of cases acknowledged that experience was a benefit to the company and that age could constitute a competitive factor in the market. The Human Resources manager of a construction firm declared: “We have to do everything possible to see that he (the elderly worker) remains ever motivated and involved in the business for as long as possible”. Others can be added to this, and they refer not only to medium and high level workers but also to labourers in contact with the young and with immigrants. In every case there is an awareness that the elderly worker is not only of value for his competence, but also for his attachment to the company and for a sense of responsibility. Here is the statement of an elderly worker, again in a company:
•    “The machine would break and I would stay here, maybe till eight in the evening to repair it because the next morning another person arrived. Instead now I see that if the machine breaks and it’s six o’clock… it’s left and… you go home. I did it because I liked everything to work, even if it meant sacrificing the family a little”.
•    The elements presented so far and the cases referred to do not allow us to draw a single conclusion. In some companies indeed, there is an awareness of the value represented by the elderly worker. In others it is lacking, while credence is given to the hypothesis that innovation and hence competitiveness belong to the young for whom room must be made. Of course these observations are not incidental, but the consequences of the adoption of one company policy rather than another.
On this subject it was again the Equal study in the Veneto Region that supplied some indications, because from the analysis of the business cases some syntheses were obtained, in an attempt to construct some company typologies beginning from the criteria adopted in age management. Of course age management cannot be isolated from the company system in its totality, and in fact the typologies obtained are an expression of company culture models which probably have an influence on the exercising of all the organisational functions. We make a point of the use of the word ‘probably’ since the analysis of the cases particularly concentrated on age management, going only marginally and occasionally into subjects relating to other functions, extracting, moreover, confirmatory points concerning the principal observation.
In this manner three company cultural types took shape, defined as follows:
•    family oriented companies
•    business oriented companies
•    vision oriented companies
The first type relates to companies which still acknowledge the family matrix from which they were born, where relations with people is, to some extent, still informal, as if the company had continued to be one ‘big family’. Obviously we are talking of a stereotype which, however, also has an influence on the criterion for dealing with the ageing of the workers. In the stereotypical family model one ages without following particular procedures, but completely naturally and following an intergenerational logic. Thus the elderly person passes on his experience and know-how to the young and the young help the elderly member to deal with difficulties he comes across, gradually taking his place without any painful breaks. This ‘happy framework’ which never occurs in reality, nourishes the family ideology enough, however, to transfer this approach to the company. It is understood that if the elderly worker wishes to remain in the company, so long as it is possible and convenient he stays, and when he leaves someone else will take his place, turning, if necessary, to members of the same family.
Included in the second type are the companies that pursue short term success and profit, reacting opportunely to changes in the market in order to keep a competitive edge. These companies do not plan for development over the medium to long term and consequently tend to consider the elderly worker in terms of cost and resistance to change, without considering the wealth of experience he can bring with him. Following this logic exit and/or layoffs (including early ones) of the elderly worker are seen as beneficial choices in line with the short term results which are meant to follow.
Finally the third typology relates to companies which have firm roots and plan for their medium to long term development, both to give these roots continuity and consistency, and to make the most of and increase the wealth of knowledge on which they are based. These companies are also prepared to consider their ‘social responsibility’ and therefore to be involved in the development of the area to which they belong and where they have influence. For these very reasons making the most of the elderly worker and his experience forms part of the company culture, particularly influencing the everyday management of human resources, especially relating to age, but also, broadly speaking, the strategic development choices.

6. Managing Exit from the Company

At this point we return to the subject of exit from the company and hence the move from working activity to retirement.
According to the common way of thinking this transition concerns primarily the individual, or at most the family, since the retiree is forced to change the organisation of his time and his daily life style. Following the line of thought developed so far here, however, it has to be admitted that there are others involved in this passage. On the one hand, there is the company or organisation where the worker performed his activity, and on the other the environmental and cultural context and social organisation which receives the individual, once freed from work.
There are various reasons for this co-involvement.
For the person who ages it is a case of experiencing the passage from a life that is organised within set patterns (set by others), to a life yet to be planned, in which it is hypothesised that “there will be such a drastic reduction in the time left to live” that one “would have to think of planning for the short term”. There would also be “a decrease in responsibility, which can seem a loss, but it is also a gain of time and a liberation translatable into greater freedom”. It is a question of a new perspective which for many seems such a radical change it is difficult to manage. This change, however does not happen suddenly; it is part of the “life cycle or of an individual’s time balance sheet” and therefore it “depends on personal expectations of life and one’s working life” lived till the moment of leaving it. In other words and as already mentioned above ageing does not begin at the moment working life ends, but draws to an end through the various phases which make up the life cycle itself. So it is possible to prepare to age and so to prepare to accept and manage the change, seeking thus to give new meaning to one’s life.
The tasks facing the worker who ages, therefore, appear clear. Yet there is a difficulty which should not be underestimated. Gustavo Pietropolli Charmet has no doubt about this. “I think ageing is much more difficult today than in the past and it would be cruel to burden the shoulders of individuals with the task of dealing with mourning what is lost, while at the same time reorganising the means of living the new phase. Instead it would be wonderful if the social community took on the burden of the loss, the parting, the distancing from the work performed over a long period, culturally working out the event, making the most of the passage from the old and entry into the new phase, assigning new functions, etc. The elderly also need to be shown gratitude for what they have done and to be accompanied, in the passing, by appropriate rites which make sense of and give social meaning to a process and a crisis which would otherwise be simply private individual problems”.
This long quotation introduces the second reflection on the role of the community in managing the exit from the labour market, underlining that it cannot be relegated to mere individual experience. To the cultural processing, marked by appropriate ‘rites’ must be added an operational organisation which suggests and facilitates the re-planning of the new phase. In other words the elderly person needs to find, in society, opportunities and paths in which to get involved so as to make the most of his accrued wealth of experience, but also so that he might explore new areas of interest. The community therefore plays its part, but the framework that emerges here is very varied in terms of the characteristics the area presents. On average communities are considered relatively rich: the many cultural associations support this; the whole voluntary and non-profit system where it is possible to express one’s potential and to take on commitments; the vast market of opportunities for taking up new paths to the acquisition of knowledge and to exploration support it. So from the objective point of view society is ready to welcome and support new life plans. However adequate policies for letting those interested know, first of all about these opportunities, and also for making integration and taking responsibility more practicable. There is a consequent risk that this ‘new market’, rich in offerings, might remain far from the demand expressed by the elderly retiree (ex worker) and that subjective resistance to a new commitment and the difficulty in ‘getting back into the game’ might prevail. It is as if this new market was reserved to others or was unable to respond to the expectations of those who age.
The situation relating to what has just been defined the market of opportunity is more difficult to explain. It is the free time market and therefore that of holidays, of travel and tourism. To make a correct analysis precise information that is not available is needed. It is only known that the elderly form a good part of this market. They are therefore good consumers but whether this consumer attitude is enriching or simply a response to the availability of time to be filled remains to be analysed. The elderly person’s time is not “free time” as normally understood, but a time free from work, and it is important that it be filled with appropriate meaning. In this it is not so much entertainment and rest that gives meaning to the activity carried out, but the enriching of knowledge, the creation of new associations, spiritual and mental growth, experimenting with meditation and solidarity and so on. Only on the condition mentioned can the elderly person try an ‘art of living’ which recovers the meaning of the so-called ‘trans-utilitarian ends’ and the meaning of free commitment.
If retirement expresses a passage and not an ‘interruption’, if it represents a phase in the process and not a change in the bipolar sense, then it cannot be contained within an act which determines the end of one stage and the beginning of another. Retirement must rather be seen as a gradual path that “can be considered only within a global revision of a person’s working life, whose organisation includes the possibility of parallel paths between the work period, schooling, education and training and of non-work”. The gradualness of the exit, therefore, cannot be the effect of the worker’s strategy, but, to be practicable, it really has to be the company strategy or that of the organisation where the working activity is performed.
The roads concerned in this go in two directions.
The first takes place entirely within the company and is aimed at making the most of the elderly worker, countering the factors which could render him obsolete, such as his cost compared with that of the young employee, and his relationship with technology toward which he could feel some resistance. Obviously the elderly worker’s experience can be useful to the company, if conditions are such that it proves advantageous within the working processes and can be transferred to the young. This does not come about on the worker’s initiative but through appropriate work organisation criteria.
The tools the company can adopt are basically of two types:
•    Recognition of new functions within the work process, that can be performed only by those who besides knowing and knowing how, follow the ‘way of living’ of the company culture in question. These are functions that provide, explicitly and implicitly for the transfer of such know how. In a recent transnational project, Leonardo, promoted by SIAV, Confindustria Veneto, it was highlighted how competences deriving from experience (definable as already said, as tacit) aren’t easily categorised in information, unlike for technical competences. For this reason the passing on cannot be done using the functional tools traditionally used in education and training programmes; it requires, instead, a very real relationship between the elderly worker (expert) and the young one (novice), capable of making use of the resources from both sides, a relationship, therefore develops in two directions and which is influenced by various factors, both internal organisational ones and cultural ones. This model has been called ‘infinite’ precisely to underline the continuity and reciprocity of the exchange connoting the relationship;
•    continuous education as a means of developing human resources and therefore as a form of investment in the elderly workers themselves, appreciated for the improvement they can bring to the company or organisation to which they belong. This of course implies that the elderly worker is prepared to be and interested in being educated, in developing new approaches and taking on new tools to use in carrying out new functions.
These tools assume a concrete value if made part of an internal mobility policy aimed at making the most of experience. This is a choice that has to be made by the company since it will have to introduce new parameters for measuring its productivity and competitive edge. It also concerns the worker, however, as he is invited to see mobility in terms of continuous development, even on the eve of his exit from the organisation where he has worked and is still working.
The second direction involves both the company or organisation where the working activity is performed, and the community and external cultural environment, which form the contextual reference framework for the company or organisation.
M.C. Bombelli and E. Finzi report that a “banking company….supplies retirees the opportunity to have a structured contact with voluntary work experiences in their area as a foretaste of other possible work which helps them retain an active sense of the social usefulness of their actions.”
This is a noteworthy example in that while acknowledging the worker’s right and option to leave the activity, the company comes to an agreement with the worker on when and how to gradually bring it about. The ways can be suggested by working contracts (for example part time) or by social security regulations which make allowances for those who decide to extend their stay precisely to leave behind and transfer their wealth of acquired experience. However specific agreements can also be made between the parties themselves, that meet the needs of the worker and of the organisation or company. In any case the features of the cultural environment in question and the shareholders who form part of it are fundamental. Actually gradual exit plans that are produced are not the result of a unilateral choice, but imply the involvement of everyone, since though ageing concerns an individual, it comes about within the community to which the individual belongs. And this community participates, in a variety of ways, in the dynamics that progressively denote it.
The two roads, as is easily understood, are not alternatives. They can profitably integrate with each other and be of mutual support, in a complementary manner. And both participate in fuelling a new culture capable of generating and supporting new models of behaviour, new languages, new symbolic rites

7. Conclusions

From the many points that can be chosen by way of conclusion, I choose gradual exit from the labour market as that which best synthesises the reflection developed in the preceding pages. Not only for its objective content, but for the kind of co-involvement it requires of the various subjects who, in various ways contribute to it and bring it about.
For the elderly worker it is a matter of taking on the role of player in phase of passing from worker status to that of retiree, adequately preparing and taking all the actions necessary to adapt, to keep himself active, even beyond true working activity. A commitment that will lead him to recognise the meaning of the work carried out, not only in terms of his being a supplier of means, but also that of an expression of his own personality and intelligence. For the company the gradual management of the elderly worker’s exit constitutes the opportunity to acknowledge and make the most of the experience of old age, not in a self referential logic, but as a tool for development and growth, in as much as it represents a wealth that is transferable to others.
It is the task of the various subjects constituting the environmental, cultural and organisational context and the one which corresponds to the elderly worker’s daily living environment and that of the retired worker, to put into practice information and promotional policies, aimed at making available every possible opportunity for bringing about the paths which the elderly worker is called upon to take in order to give consistency to his active ageing.
It will be the readers therefore who choose the aspect on which to take the greatest action; but it is up to all the shareholders to intervene, at the point when one passes from the idea and the hypothesis to policy choices and social affairs.

Pages: 1 2