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Increasing the value of age: guidance in employers’ age management strategies

the situation at Wicke). This is where human resource planning plays an
important role but not all companies plan their human resource needs.
It is also good for employees to think about their working life and productivity
later in life. An interesting statement from the case of Vysočina: ‘Until the age of
40, you have a lot of family responsibilities related to your children. When you
become 50, there comes the stage when a person takes care of their parents,
which can be even more exhausting. I have never thought of leaving my job
because of my age or potential loss of my work ability, but now I am seriously
thinking about it because of the family issues related to my ageing parents’.
In some cases there are national developments that directly stimulate or
compel an organisation to implement an age management strategy. Laws and
regulations can make it mandatory to develop age management (this can be via
binding laws) or stimulate the development of age management (this can be via
providing funds and/or creating awareness with public information programmes).
Such binding laws are a motivational factor in the cases in France (Crédit
Industriel et Commercial and Groupama). The dimensions are not mutually
exclusive; both are present in the policy in France (see also Chapter 3).
The goals of active age management policies, as described above, have a
problem-orientated focus, with the strategy addressing a specific challenge, such
as health problems, negative stereotypes, disappearance of competence,
integration of workers’ experience. This appears to be the case in many
situations, but not always.
Two companies (CSQ and Vysočina) have developed an age management
strategy without any kind of problem at hand. In these cases the organisation
either sees it as their own responsibility to develop an age management strategy,
or because of another opportunity that results in the development of the strategy.
At the Czech Society for Quality (CSQ) a strategy was introduced based on an
offer from the Association of Adult Education Institutions who asked CSQ to
participate in a project on age management.
Nevertheless, the problem-orientated focus is an important aspect of the
normative element in age management and discussion of what age management
is or can be. It also implies that, in most situations, age management is reactive:
a problem occurs (or is perceived as going to occur) and policy is developed and
implemented to deal with the problem at hand.

5.2.2. From strategy to approach
Once a company has laid down the aims for the age management strategy, the
next step is to specify the approach. Instruments are selected for implementation

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