Saif Khan

9/27/2016

Source 5
Beier, Margaret. "Strategies for Engaging and Retaining Mature
Workers." SHRM-SIOP Science of HR Series (2016): 1-28. Web. 25 Sept.

2016.
The journal, Strategies for Engaging and Retaining Mature Workers, is
a white paper that provides practitioner oriented reviews of evidencebased research on leading I/O Psychology topics by the Society for
Human Resource Management and Society for Industrial and
Organizational Psychology. The journal is written by Margaret Beier, an
Associate Professor of Industrial and Organizational Psychology at Rice,

whose work has been published on multiple outlets.

My mentor sent me this article.
The intended audience of this article is specifically the aging workforce
and employers who must adapt to upcoming demographic shifts with a

larger younger population than ever.

As of this year, many of the baby boomers are retiring from their jobs
however, corporations are not ready for this large demographic shift.
The article discusses the pros and cons of the different ages of a
workforce and ways in which employers can retain loyal employees.
Her research concludes that there is no correlation on core task
performance and creativity between older or younger generation kids.
However, age does have a positive relationship with helping others and
maintaining a positive attitude. The article concludes that the
stereotype about declines in worker motivation as their age increases
is largely a misconception. Rather, individual factors are what affect
motivation including: the perception of the amount of time a worker

may have left to work.

Quotes:
o More mature workers are likely to perceive that their time left at
work is limited because of looming retirement relative to younger

workers, who may perceive a more expansive work-related time

horizon (Carstensen, Isaacowitz, & Charles, 1999). This changing
perspective on time left at work can lead to a shift in goals from
extrinsic/achievement focused (e.g., I want to be successful to
obtain status and salary) to intrinsic/personal meaning focused
(e.g., I want this project to succeed because it is personally
meaningful to me; Kooij et al., 2011). The shift in goals will
influence worker choices about the activities in which they
engage.
o to accommodate workers for the physical stress experienced on
an assembly line, BMW implemented an array of relatively small
changes (70 changes in total) in the physical environment of a
manufacturing plant. These changes included adding a wooden
platform that was easier on joints, purchasing ergonomic chairs
and providing magnifying glasses for some tasks.
Accommodations were designed and implemented with input
from workers as part of an effort to retain an aging workforce
o when performance is broadly considered to include
organizational citizenship and prosocial behaviors, such as
mentoring, helping others with their work and maintaining a
positive attitude about work, age is significantly positively
related to performance

***Intended Audience Bullet Point for Source 6 Analysis***

The intended audience of chapter three are interviewers and

employers so that they know the importance of perceived
organizational support and the ways in which they can increase it.