Work Life Integration and Older Employees

Work-life Integration is an outcome of people exercising control and choice in their life to meet life’s challenges. This can be in terms of managing work responsibilities alongside their personal and family needs. Work life integration changes based on the individual’s life stages. Work-life needs are likely to differ by gender, age, role and seniority. Work life integration is also strongly influenced by cultural assumptions, practices and individual differences such as job involvement and occupational context. Advancement in technology influenced the overall mix of jobs, and because jobs in themselves differ in the ways in which they influence the relationships between work and life outside of work, technology affects work-life integration.

Differences in the nature of production across industries are connected with differences in the ability of individuals in various jobs to integrate work and family. For instance, in some industries work may be tied to machinery that is not portable and that may need to be operated on an inflexible schedule, with the result that work schedules are determined by the location and the machinery used, rather than by workers’ needs. Other industries that rely more on flexible, portable forms of information technology (e.g., the use of laptop computers among sales professionals or consultants) offer greater opportunities for the integration of work and family demands because workers have more control on how, where and when they work. (Valcour & Batt, 2003b).

A drop in the number of workers employed in the manufacturing sector together with an expansion in the service-sector employment suggest that workers have moved into jobs that usually allow more flexible scheduling, permit more freedom of movem...

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...difficult, especially if they have no formal qualifications or poor literacy. Such vulnerable older workers will be likely to have an appetite for refreshing their skill sets to make themselves more employable.

 Leavers – some older workers want to retire sooner, rather than later. Finding out why this is can give organisations important insights about any underlying management problems and how to resolve them. Debriefing is important to ensure that a valuable older employee is not being lost unnecessarily and that appropriate arrangements are made to retain important knowledge and skill sets.

It is essential that employers understand the various reasons why people want to put off retirement or work flexibly as they get older, as well as what motivates them and how ageing affects people’s health and well-being, if they are to get the best out of an ageing workforce.