Suchergebnisse

Abstract
We live in an unusual time, which effects all of us in different ways. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, some people are working harder than ever, some people have lost their job, some people can only work from home, and some people have to reinvent how they work (Kniffin et al., 2020). Older 50+ workers might even be more affected by the pandemic compared to younger workers because they are labeled as vulnerable and as being at risk in terms of Covid-19 (Ayalon et al., 2020). However, emerging studies on the impact of Covid-19 suggest that older workers respond more effectively to measures that counter Covid-19 (Losada-Balter et al., 2020). This is in line with the lifespan developmental perspective, which theorizes and demonstrates that older adults generally are very capable of adapting and very effective in dealing with the aging process (Baltes and Baltes, 1990; Freund, 2008). Multiple studies show that older adults engage in various self-regulation strategies aimed at continuously maintaining or restoring person-environment fit (e.g., Kooij et al., 2020; Taneva and Arnold, 2018; Zacher, Kooij, & Beier, 2018a) thus helping them to age successfully at work. In this commentary, I will take a more positive perspective on older workers and discuss the self-regulation strategies that older workers engage in and how organizations can stimulate this. I will end my commentary with some suggestions for future research.

AbstractSince workforces are aging rapidly worldwide, older workers need to work longer. Therefore, this study investigated active ways through which older workers shape their job to age successfully at work. We build on the lifespan psychology literature and the activation hypothesis to argue that activating workdays, characterized by high work pressure and high autonomy, stimulate older workers to engage in job crafting behaviors aimed at making their jobs more interesting (i.e., interests crafting) rather than in job crafting behaviors aimed at lowering their work pressure (i.e., work pressure crafting). Interests crafting in turn enhances the work engagement and job performance of older workers. We conducted a daily diary study among 128 older workers and found that activating workdays were indeed positively associated with daily interests crafting, and that daily interests crafting was positively related to daily work engagement and daily job performance. In contrast, we found that although daily work pressure was positively associated with daily work pressure crafting, an activating workday was not, and engaging in work pressure crafting was negatively associated with daily work engagement and job performance. These results demonstrate that older workers can be stimulated daily to engage in effective job crafting behaviors to make sure that they are motivated and productive members of the workforce.