Age management concept - opportunity or threat

Abstract

As human age prolongs, also the retirement age limit of employees moves. Today sixty-year-old person if not affected by any serious health handicap is still a person full of energy, power and, yet, mature and experienced enough to handle regular work tasks as well as unpredictable situations not possible to manage only by a routine approach. (Jensik, 2013) Currently, the Age Management Concept, i.e. personnel management considering age and changing skills of employees within organisation, starts to be applied and implemented to some extent within the human resources management area. Thus, the organisation management, with in this concept, should approach to every single employee differently, understand their individual needs, support their continuous growth or development, and, on the other hand, accept their limits or weaknesses. These weaknesses should be minimised or removed completely in the employee organisation management mutual synergy. It is, thus, obvious that each employee shall have other positives and other negatives not only regarding the gender, work performance or position, but also with regard to the biological age. In this context, Vortelova (2013) presents the research of Manpower conducted in 2007 and focused on individual generations of employees from the perspective of social categories for the area of human resources management. It involves five generations of employees in total where one generation is limited by the duration approximately of 15 years. It concerns the generation of Pre-Boomers: employees born before 1946, and further the generation of Baby Boomers: employees born within the years from 1947 to 1960. The third generation is the X Generation: employees born during the years from 1961 to 1975. Typical for this generation is that the people are willing to work hard, they have distinctive individualistic features, money means value for them, and they strive not to run into debts, they make clear decisions between their family and career, and have rather pessimistic view of the world. The third generation is called Y Generation: employees born during the years from 1976 to 1990. This generation only sees money as a mean and willingly run into debts, requires good remuneration for work, willingly changes working places and, usually, does not seek any sense in the job, and requires more flexible working hours. The fifth generation is indicated as Z Generation: employees born during the years from 1991 to 2005. This youngest generation is highly interconnected and globalised, is constantly online, and uses advanced means of communication and technology. Pillinger (2008) or Polcakova (2011) define the Age Management Concept as a complex approach leading to the solution of demographic changes at the work place, supporting age diversity and management of work processes within the physical and social environment. The article offers a view to some of the partial results of quantitative and qualitative research conducted within the author's doctoral thesis focused on specific aspects of personnel management of employees of the age category 50+ in conditions of Czech and Slovak organisations and, further, of TACR (Technology Agency of the Czech Republic) grant project, OMEGA Programme to support applied social-science research and experimental development, registration No. TD010129, Performance Potential of Employees 50+, and specific forms of companies' human resources management. The main purpose of the article is to initiate discussion over the Age Management Concept or philosophy itself. Does, therefore, the personnel management considering the age and changing skills of organisation employees mean an opportunity or, on the contrary, a threat for the complex operation of the whole organisation?