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Working and ageing
74 Guidance and counselling for mature learners

Wittpoth specifically focused on the dyad between supervisors and
subordinates possibly affecting workersʼ competence development and,
subsequently, their employability. Based on relational demography theory, he
assumed that the quality of LMX differs with age as a demographic
characteristic. With social and organisational norms and career timetable
theory in mind, he hypothesised that older workers with younger supervisors
differ from other kinds of dyads on size and formality of their HRD portfolio,
and on their employability.
In both studies, the concept of employability was assessed with Van der
Heijde and Van der Heijdenʼs (2006) ʻemployability instrumentʼ which has
proved to have sound psychometric qualities (see also Van der Heijden et al.,
2009). The instrument includes five scales measuring:
(a) occupational expertise (15 items);
(b) anticipation and optimisation (8 items);
(c) personal flexibility (8 items);
(d) corporate sense (7 items);
(e) balance (9 items).
To collect data on the concepts of motivation to learn, learning climate, and
supervisor support, Breukers used previously validated scales; motivation to
learn was measured by five items based on Nijman (2004); the learning
organisation questionnaire developed by Marsick and Watkins (2003) was
used to assess learning climate, while supervisor support was measured by
means of 10 items from the learning climate questionnaire of Mikkelsen and
Gronhaug (1999) concerning management relations and style. Ability to learn
was measured by asking for the number of years in which additional training
and courses were attended after completing initial education. Because job
rotation is not intended as promotion, but as an opportunity to learn new tasks
and thus develop new competences, this concept was measured by asking
for changes in jobs within and between subsidiaries and without increase in
salary. Cronbachʼs alpha of these scales ranged from 0.80 to 0.93, confirming
their reliability.
To gather data on participation in formal/informal HRD activities, Wittpoth
also used scales that had already proved their reliability. Both size and
average formality of respondentsʼ HRD portfolio were assessed by means of
the formality scale developed by Horstink (2008). The number of training
activities an employee participated in, out of seven HRD activities identified
by Wognum and Bartlett (2002), was used to determine the size of the HRD
portfolio. The formality of HRD portfolio was identified by calculating the mean
average formality of all activities in which the employee participated.