Age-appropriate work

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Employment relationships are age-appropriate (or age-differentiated) if they serve the needs of older employees. Age n sgerecht other hand, to make working conditions across the entire employment history of an employee so that this possible healthy and motivated reached the pension, that is. H. to do everything “that protects the young and benefits the elderly”.

Demographic background

Number of employed persons aged 65 and over. Results for a reporting week in spring up to 2004; from 2005 annual average results, as well as changed survey and extrapolation procedures.

Demographic change is changing the age structure of the population in Germany and in most of the countries of the European Union . The number of people in Germany is tending to decrease, although the life expectancy of those living in Germany is increasing. This development can also be felt on the labor market. As early as 2012, there was an urgent need for trainees and skilled workers in many areas. By 2030, the number of 20- to 64-year-olds is expected to decrease by more than six million. At the same time, the age group of over 64-year-olds is likely to grow by 5.5 million people.

The impact of the decline in the birth rate on the labor supply has so far been largely offset by increasing participation in the labor force, especially among women and the elderly. In future, however, this compensation will no longer be able to take place to the same extent, as greater potential has already been exploited. There are growing bottlenecks in individual professions and regions in the recruitment of skilled workers.

In future, fewer and, on average, older workers will have to earn the livelihood of the non-employed. In order to keep the workload within acceptable limits, the German government believes that participation in the labor force in Germany should continue to rise, especially that of older workers. In the European Union, the aim is to achieve an employment rate of 75% of the population aged 20 to 64 years. Alternatively, the task of maintaining present-day consumption standards with an increasing number of recipients of social transfers and a steady number of producers can be achieved by increasing the average productivity of the labor force, including the elderly.

Deficit and Competency Model of Aging

Activating and motivating aging workers requires a move away from deficit models of aging . These assume that there is an increase in skills up to around the third decade of life, which then, after a short, stable phase, turns into a continuous, inexorable and irreversible decline in performance and ultimately ends in death. The assumed constant decline affects the intellectual as well as the affective and the physical performance.

The majority of gerontologists have now replaced these models with the competence model of aging. According to this, attention must be paid to what skills people at what age have. It is true that, with increasing age, the loss of muscle strength, physical performance, mobility, coordination, vision and hearing, reaction rate, sustained attention, multitasking skills, memory and longer recovery times become noticeable. It should be noted, however, that employees are seldom required to achieve their maximum capacity. A level of 60 percent is not exceeded in many activities, and for many parameters people on average only fall below 80 percent of their previous physical performance at the age of 60. In addition, according to Gabriele Elke, loss of competence would be offset by the experience and professional knowledge of older people, their judgment and responsibility, their reliability, communication skills, identification with organization, self-control and the importance of appreciation and respect.

In order to emphasize that workers who would not have continued to work or would not have been hired in times of high unemployment and early retirement policies can still be of use to a company, the term “ performance-modified ” is increasingly used. This does not only mean workers with a disability , but all workers who, due to the medical certificate of an irreversible change, cannot be expected to have the same performance expectations as younger employees.

In 2004 Ford Germany received the “National Award for Sustainable Health Management” for the “FILM (Promotion of the Integration of Employees with Modified Performance)” project . With the project in Cologne, Ford began in 2001 as the first large company in Europe not to lay off employees because of their performance conversion, but to offer them jobs in the company that took their performance conversion into account.

activities

Ensuring the ability of the aging workforce to work is decisive for a company's competitiveness. This essentially concerns the dimensions of employee motivation , competence and health.

In the opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC), “far-reaching measures are necessary to enable people to remain in employment longer (if they so wish) . Working conditions must be tailored to older people and work must be made more flexible; appropriate incentives for employers must be created and potential dangers identified and eliminated. The decisive prerequisites are overcoming the existing prejudices against older people and appreciating their contribution to society. "Werner Feldes and Barbara Jentgens have developed concrete action aids for works councils , union representatives and representatives of the severely disabled , which are intended to help ensure that employees are able to work in the long term .

In Germany, the New Quality of Work initiative has been commissioned since 2002 to develop concepts for age-appropriate and age-appropriate working conditions and to publicize and coordinate company initiatives. The central decision-making body of INQA is its steering committee; it has equal representation with representatives from business and the trade unions. The Federal Employment Agency, the Conference of Labor and Social Affairs Ministers and the Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, which financially supports the initiative, are also represented in it. Four thematic ambassadors bring technical expertise and a practical perspective to the committee. The topic ambassadors each represent one of the strategic topics of the initiative. These are the topics of personnel management, equal opportunities & diversity, health and knowledge & competence.

Promotion of motivation

In a representative survey carried out by the Bertelsmann Foundation in 2006, the employees surveyed stated what the working environment would have to be like so that they would be motivated (provided that they were able to work for that long) to remain gainfully employed until they were 65 or older , first of all:

  • 75% better opportunities to reconcile work and personal commitments;
  • 72% taking on activities that are less harmful to health;
  • 70% greater recognition of my work performance by superiors;
  • 70% reduction in weekly working hours from a certain age;
  • 66% take on new challenging tasks in the company.

Corporate culture

According to Werner Feldes, a prerequisite for an age-appropriate corporate policy is “a corporate culture that focuses on long-term personnel development. She emphasizes a supportive and appreciative treatment of the human resources of the entire workforce. They embed the topic of getting older in an overarching strategy for further developing workforces and workforce structures. This includes new models and concepts with which work can be structured across generations. It is about an integrative and holistic recruitment and corporate policy that is based on individual skills and not on age criteria. "

Work organization

“Age” as an independent and strategic category of personnel policy has only recently come more into the focus of organizations. Until recently, older people in organizations were still considered to be operational maneuvering masses in the context of staff reduction and restructuring measures, but today companies are starting to consider the aging of employees in their personnel policy. Age Management or Age Diversity are just two terms that reflect this new understanding of aging in organizations.

The relatively young research area "Age Management" in the field of human resource management in business administration deals with the following issues, among others:

  • How can companies optimally adapt to the needs of different age groups?
  • What roles do culture and the climate in companies play in this?
  • What influence does an age-oriented corporate strategy have on corporate success?
  • How does age management contribute to the acquisition, retention, development and performance of employees of different age groups?
  • Do employees of different age groups differ in their reaction to age management activities in companies?

Workplace design

In order to compensate for the change in performance in aging people, the Austrian Federal Chamber of Labor and the Austrian Trade Union Confederation propose measures that should help minimize the consequences of aging-related physiological changes, namely:

  • the limited mobility of the joints, the reduced elasticity of tendons and ligaments;
  • the decrease in physical strength;
  • the decrease in vision, decreased accommodation (i.e. the ability of the lens of the eye to adjust to near and far vision);
  • the lower heat tolerance;
  • the lower cold tolerance and
  • the increased risk of falling, falling and slipping.

Werner Feldes assesses the risks to physical health from special physical effects (vibration, hand and arm vibrations), repetitive, uniform movements, working while sitting, standing or walking, working while squatting, kneeling or lying down, working with stressful postures (bent over or twisted back, overhead), forced posture and hazards from working environment conditions (especially inadequate or too bright lighting), but also psychological impairment due to the lack of versatility, holism, scope for action, attention, knowledge and learning, information and participation, cooperation and social support as well as the presence of regulatory obstacles, overtime / overtime, work outside of normal working hours and shift work.

Compensatory measures

In Germany, employed persons spend an average of 80–85 percent of their working day sitting down. However, the resulting physical strain can be counteracted, for example through better screens and office chairs, more incentives to exercise at the workplace and regular endurance and exercise training.

The Federal Employment Agency recommends that companies use ergonomically designed workplaces or sports and nutrition programs to specifically prevent or remedy a decline in skills. The opportunity for more frequent, short recovery times relieves employees, and careful instruction on a newly purchased machine motivates them.

Recently there has been a discussion about whether exoskeletons are suitable for maintaining the ability of physically working people to work longer than before. Passive, non-powered exoskeletons can be both an innovative tool and personal protective equipment for employees. In particular, exoskeletons are expected to increase physical strength, but also to relieve the arm and shoulder area when working overhead.

working time

Hartmut Seifert criticized in 2008 that the development of working hours did not match the political plan to postpone the actual retirement age and bring it as close as possible to the statutory age limit. A not inconsiderable number of employees (28.9 percent) - mostly men - work excessively long weekly working hours of 42 or more hours. According to the German Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, one in five full-time older people worked more than 48 hours a week in 2006, but only one in ten full-time younger people (25 to under 35 years of age). This is also explained by the far higher proportion of managers and self-employed among the elderly. According to Seifert, the basic idea of ​​an age-appropriate working time policy is to extend the working life volume over a longer lifespan with reduced daily / weekly working hours.

criticism

Failure to put theory into practice

The parliamentary group Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen criticized in 2011 that the federal government did not have comprehensive knowledge of the number of age-appropriate and age-appropriate jobs. When asked which psychological and physical stresses in working life are problematic and make a longer working life impossible, the federal government led by the CDU / CSU and the FDP replied that stresses should not be assessed as negative per se and that stresses also "activating." and bring about development-promoting and thus positive effects ”. With its aim of promoting age-appropriate and age-appropriate work, the INQA can only be successful if the actions of the actors in the field of occupational safety are coordinated and the activities are bundled. There is "an impenetrable jungle of projects, initiatives, campaigns and contact persons in Germany" when it comes to support in designing age-appropriate and age-appropriate working conditions. Many employers are overwhelmed with this. Jörn Müller had already pointed out in 2002 that the INQA approach could prove to be relatively impractical due to its relatively high demands. Even if individual projects have a high practical relevance, it is unclear how quickly and how well the developed concepts prevail in everyday life and whether, in case of doubt, they will prevail at all.

Contradiction between the reality of the elderly and the hope for better conditions in the future

Ernst Kistler welcomes the fact that the deficit model of aging now has hardly any supporters, but doubts that the positive view of supporters of the competence model meets reality. According to Kistler it would be "unrealistic to assume that all older people still with 65 years in line with the increased demands of the labor demand side employment or are able to work." In addition, many of the employees, of whom was expected that they should stay longer in employment would, as which until recently was still common, worked under conditions that were designed to allow early retirement. “[T] he claims of age- and age-appropriate labor policy [point] in opposite directions, at least in the short and medium term. From this perspective, age-appropriate tariff policy must create regulations that are supposed to become superfluous through age-appropriate regulations. It has to ensure that older people have claims that they want to exclude for younger people in the future, ”says the Initiative New Quality of Work (INQA).

Lack of need for employers to offer age-appropriate work

Some critics deny that employment practices that are based on ( exploiting and) quickly wearing out workers will disappear in the long term in Germany and in other industrialized countries. This is countered by the increase in labor productivity, which results in a decrease in the demand for labor and a faster pace of work, as well as the large supply of unskilled labor worldwide. So is z. With regard to the meat industry, for example, Peter Kossen , at the time deputy of the Bischöflich Munster official in Vechta , believes that it is difficult for companies in the industry to give up the price-undercutting competition at the expense of constantly newly employed, poorly paid Eastern European work contract workers . In office occupations there is an increasing tendency to strengthen the resilience of heavily stressed employees instead of trying to relieve them.

Thomas Straubhaar is of the opinion that the tendency of employers to lay off unneeded or no longer usable workers would only be impaired if people had the option to reject bad work and claim an unconditional basic income . Only then would “employers make an effort to create an environment in which employees want to achieve something”.

According to some critics, it may even be wrong to assume that demographic aging will lead to a shortage of skilled workers. The question is whether the digital revolution will make 18 million or "only" 5 million jobs redundant in Germany over the next two decades.

Unwillingness of employed persons to be careful with their labor

Employment up to the age of 67 or even beyond is comparable to running a marathon . A marathon runner has to divide his strength well so that he still has enough energy shortly before the finish. In fact, in large parts of the industrialized countries the willingness to expend oneself on one's work is rated rather positively. It also leads to wear and tear and exhaustion as well as an overall unhealthy lifestyle (with the high consumption of tobacco products, alcohol and illegal drugs, unhealthy diet, lack of exercise and chronic lack of sleep), which often leads to the typical diseases of civilization , which impair and also to the ability to work lead to an early death. The increase in the proportion of obese in the German population makes the thesis of a steadily increasing life expectancy appear questionable.

Disadvantage to younger people

As recently as 2005 (in February of that year there were over 5 million registered unemployed in Germany), IG Metall declared: “The later employees leave the company, the fewer opportunities younger people have in the labor market. Any extension of working hours increases unemployment. ”From this, the union concluded that, despite the demographic problems foreseeable in 2005, efforts to activate older workers, especially those with health problems, should not be exaggerated. The connection mentioned in the quotation is not suspended forever in Germany and still applies to other countries in the present. Within the European Union, for example, there are countries with high youth unemployment, especially in the Mediterranean region .

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ IG Metall: Age-appropriate work design . Specialized information on work design. No. 45 (September 2012), p. 3
  2. ↑ Federal Government: Answer of the Federal Government to Small Inquiry - Printed matter 19/13748 . Ed .: German Bundestag. Berlin May 24, 2017 ( bundestag.de [PDF]).
  3. ↑ Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs: Progress Report "Age-Appropriate Working World". Edition 1: Development of the labor market for older people . 2012. p. 4
  4. ↑ Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs: White Paper Work 4.0 . January 2017, p. 29
  5. ↑ European Economic and Social Committee (EESC): EESC opinion on the European Year for Active Aging . Brussels 2012
  6. ↑ Bert Rürup : Foreword In: Nicolas Gatzke: Lifelong learning in an aging society . 2008, p. 4
  7. ↑ Hartmut Meyer-Wolters: Aging as a task - or against the fool's freedom of the old . University of Cologne. Lecture given on July 9, 2002
  8. ↑ Gabriele Elke: Age and age-appropriate work design - how does it work? . dbb Academy. May 15, 2013, p. 4
  9. ^ Initiative New Quality of Work (INQA): Orientation aid for aging-appropriate work design . PINA project. August 2015, p. 4f.
  10. ↑ Work and health for employees who have changed performance . ASU. Journal of Medical Prevention 12/2006
  11. ↑ Haufe-Lexware GmbH & Co. KG: Employment of performance -modified employees / 1 "Performance-modified" as a term
  12. ↑ S. Adenauer: The (re) integration of performance-modified employees in the work process. The FILM project at FORD Cologne . Original source: Applied work sciences . 2004 (No. 181), pp. 1-18
  13. ↑ INQA (Initiative New Quality of Work): Age-differentiated and age-appropriate company and tariff policy. An inventory of operational policy and collective bargaining measures to ensure employability . November 2011, p. 28
  14. ↑ European Economic and Social Committee (EESC): EESC opinion on the European Year for Active Aging . Brussels 2012
  15. ↑ Werner Feldes / Barbara Jentgens: Age- and age-appropriate work. Practical help for works councils, shop stewards and representatives of the severely disabled . Bund-Verlag 2014 ( online )
  16. ^ INQA: Structure of the initiative
  17. ↑ Michael Bau: Age-appropriate work - between desire and reality . IHK Lübeck. June 2, 2016, p. 20
  18. ↑ Werner Feltes: Aging-appropriate and conducive design work . In: IG Metall Projekt Gute Arbeit (Ed.): “Gute Arbeit” manual. Practical aids and materials for operational practice . 2007. pp. 189f. ( online )
  19. ↑ Mirko Sporket: Age Diversity in Organizations . Heinrich Böll Foundation . July 1, 2008
  20. ↑ Age Management . Department of Marketing & Personnel Management at TU Darmstadt
  21. ↑ Federal Chamber of Labor / Austrian Trade Union Confederation: Design tips for age-appropriate working . 2014
  22. ↑ Werner Feltes: Aging-appropriate and conducive design work . In: IG Metall Projekt Gute Arbeit (Ed.): “Gute Arbeit” manual. Practical aids and materials for operational practice . 2007. p. 209 ( online )
  23. ↑ Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs: Progress Report "Age-Appropriate Working World". Edition 2: Age-appropriate work design . January 2013, p. 16
  24. ↑ Federal Employment Agency: Age-Appropriate Working ( Memento of the original from June 14, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . 4th February 2014 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www3.arbeitsagentur.de
  25. ↑ Exoskeletons: Humans prepare for the world of work . focus.de. 4th December 2018
  26. ↑ Hartmut Seifert: Age-appropriate working hours . In: From Politics and Contemporary History . April 21, 2008 ( online )
  27. ↑ Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs: Progress Report "Age-Appropriate Working World". Edition 2: Age-appropriate work design . January 2013, p. 17
  28. ↑ Bundestag faction Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen: Don't let older employees down . March 31, 2011
  29. ↑ Jörn Müller: Reforms for the world of work: INQA . In: The time . August 15, 2002. Retrieved January 26, 2017
  30. ↑ Ernst Kistler: "Age-appropriate gainful employment". An overview of the state of science and practice . Hans Böckler Foundation. 2008, p. 49
  31. ↑ INQA (Initiative New Quality of Work): Age-differentiated and age-appropriate company and tariff policy. An inventory of operational policy and collective bargaining measures to ensure employability . November 2011, p. 41
  32. ↑ We slave owners - exploitation in Germany ( Memento of the original from September 5, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . North German Broadcasting . 5th December 2016 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.daserste.de
  33. ↑ "The abuse of work contracts eats its way through our economy like a cancerous ulcer" . Interview with Peter Kossen. Society for innovative employment promotion mbH North Rhine-Westphalia. gib-info 1/2014 p. 85
  34. ↑ Christina Berndt: Anti-stress courses in companies - training people for the office . In: sueddeutsche.de; March 14, 2015
  35. ↑ Selfishness sown, Trump reaped . Interview with Thomas Straubhaar. In: "Der Spiegel". Issue 7/2017. February 11, 2017, pp. 68f.
  36. ↑ Alexander Hagelüken: Technology is devaluing more and more craft trades . In: sueddeutsche.de; December 18, 2016
  37. ^ German Obesity Society: Prevalence . 2012
  38. ↑ Development of life expectancy at birth in Germany by gender from 1950 to 2060 (in years) . statista.com. 2018
  39. ↑ Claudia Liebram: Germany is weakening when it comes to life expectancy . welt.de. November 26, 2018
  40. ↑ Board of the metal industry union: Materials for an age-appropriate and learning-conducive work policy . 2005, p. 3
  41. ^ Federal Agency for Civic Education: Youth Unemployment in Europe . April 21, 2016