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AbstractIn this commentary, I observe the assumption of privilege of many of the age stereotypes that emerged to characterize both older and younger age groups at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. This leads to a reflection of how much extant age stereotype research may be limited by the typical centering of a white and a middle- or upper-class perspective. I make acknowledgment of strides toward intersectional research and suggest some further research questions to move this work forward.

Abstract
In this commentary, we overview the existing research on psychological consequences caused by COVID-19 for both residents and staff in the nursing homes. We identify loneliness and emotional anxiety as main psychological consequences for nursing home residents, whereas uncertainty, hopelessness, work overload, and role conflicts are the most salient psychological challenges for the staff in the nursing homes during the pandemic. We then summarize the existing strategies and interventions responsive to the above challenges. We suggest that this overview may help nursing home managers understand what are the key psychological challenges and how to deal with them during a crisis period. Finally, we also encourage future research to pay more attention to exploring interventions specifically designed for vulnerable older people, understanding the role of the nursing home leader team in managing emotional and ethical challenges in organizations, and developing community-wide collaboration with multiple external stakeholders.

AbstractUncertainty is at the center of debates on how to best cope with the Covid-19 pandemic. In our exploration of the role of uncertainty in current aging and lifespan research, we build on an uncertainty regulation framework that includes both reduction and creation of uncertainty as viable self-regulatory processes. In particular, we propose that future time perspective, a key component in models of successful aging, should be reconceptualized in terms of uncertainty regulation. We argue that by proactively regulating the amount of uncertainty one is exposed to, individuals' future time perspective can be altered. We show how extant research might be (re)interpreted based on these considerations and suggest directions for future research, challenging a number of implicit assumptions about how age and uncertainty are interlinked. We close with some practical implications for individuals and organizations for managing the Covid-19 crisis.

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.

AbstractFriendship may help to bridge differences between people, such as between age-diverse employees. Oftentimes, age diversity in employee interactions cultivates interpersonal tensions. Age-diverse workplace friendship—a relationship between coworkers of different ages, who like each other and who are engaged in a balanced social exchange—may help to overcome these interpersonal tensions because having something in common can de-escalate age-related difficulties and reduce negative feelings between diverse individuals. Despite the relevance of the topic, literature focusing on age-diverse workplace friendship is rare. To address this gap and direct future research, we aim to integrate research on related topics such as workplace friendship and (age) diversity at work into a systematic literature review. Concentrating primarily on the formation and maintenance of age-diverse workplace friendship, we identified similarity-attraction theory, social identity theory, and socioemotional selectivity theory as the three dominant theories referenced in the literature and utilize them to embed and connect our findings into existing theory. More specifically, we review and summarize the findings of our systematic literature review into an integrated framework depicting the antecedents, formation and maintenance processes, and outcomes of age-diverse workplace friendship. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings and point out directions for future research.

AbstractThe proportion of older workers in the labor force is increasing. While much research over recent decades has suggested that this will create significant challenges for organizations, current evidence suggests that age-related human resource management practices are rare. Using a grounded theory approach, we examine why organizations are not adopting formal practices and what they are doing instead of using data from 43 interviews and focus groups within eight German and U.S. manufacturing facilities in 3 organizations. We find significant tension between perceptions of aging's impact by top managers and unit supervisors. Lacking top-level formal support for age-related initiatives, our evidence shows supervisors adopting more informal, unit-level responses that do not require significant reorganization of work, masking the impact of workforce aging to top leaders. We also develop a typology of practices used to respond to workforce aging based on their effects on human capital flows in and out of the organization. Finally, we find that while aging is assessed similarly in the U.S. and Germany, German firms have greater flexibility and more formal practice options in their response due to employee relations systems, working time arrangements, and human resource planning systems which pressure organizations more to adopt formal practices. Our results inform a human capital perspective of the organizational response to workforce aging.

AbstractWhile demographic change is leading to an aging workforce in many parts of the world, more and more companies are implementing agile forms of collaboration. These enable better adaptation to change through constant, iterative learning but require a corresponding mindset from the employees. According to meta-analytical findings, willingness to learn is negatively correlated with employee age, whereas willingness to change is not. We examined the relationship between employee age and readiness for change toward Scrum—the predominant framework of agile project management—focusing on moderating effects. We hypothesized that readiness for Scrum does not decrease with employee age per se, but that it depends on age climate and subjective age. Using an animated explainer video, we created a scenario in which Scrum gets implemented in the participants' work area. We tested our hypotheses using two studies with age-heterogeneous samples (N1 = 146, N2 = 198), differing in their mean ages (M1 = 36.9, M2 = 41.6). Across studies, and consistent with expectations, readiness for Scrum increased with age when employees reported lower levels of subjective age. Regarding age climate, the results were mixed: In Study 1, readiness for Scrum increased with age when participants perceived a more negative age climate, whereas in Study 2, it increased in a more positive age climate. Results of the three-way interaction in Study 1 suggest a complex interplay between age identity and age climate. We interpret these results in light of existing theory and discuss possible implications for research and practice.

Abstract
Demographic changes increase the age range in occupational teams, which has potential consequences for collaboration not only at the team level (age diversity) but also at the individual level regarding how much effort workers expend. By integrating a life span perspective into theories on effort expenditure in teams, we assumed that workers' chronological age moderates the relationship between task-specific self-efficacy beliefs and effort expenditure in organizational teamwork. More specifically, we assumed that task-specific self-efficacy beliefs are more strongly related with effort for older as compared with younger team members. Hypotheses were tested in 2 online studies (N = 209 and 271 workers, respectively) using the event reconstruction method. Participants were instructed to reexperience specific work events from the last few days (Study 1: 2 teamwork events; Study 2: 1 teamwork event and 1 working-alone event) and to indicate their self-efficacy and effort expenditure in each event. Results of both studies showed the expected age moderation of the self-efficacy–effort link in team settings, whereas no such moderation was observed in working-alone settings in Study 2. Finally, Study 2 also showed a stronger age moderation effect in unfamiliar as compared with familiar tasks.