UNIT 3 THE AGING WORK FORCE, WORK HOURS AND SHIFT WORK Structure 3.0 Introduction 3.1 Objectives 3.2 The Aging Work Force 3.2.1 Age Diversity and Health 3.2.2 Intervention 3.2.3 Empirical Findings Regarding the Effects of Age Diversity in Teams 3.3 Work Hours 3.3.1 The Most Popular Forms of Alternative Work Arrangements 3.3.2 Flexible Work Schedule 3.3.3 Job Sharing 3.3.4 Telecommuting 3.3.5 Benefit to Organisations 3.4 Shift work 3.4.1 Examples of Shift Work 3.4.2 Fire Fighting Schedules 3.4.3 Graveyard Shift 3.4.4 Industries 3.5 Health Effect of Shift Work 3.5.1 Sleep Disturbances 3.5.2 Disturbance of Eating Pattern 3.5.3 Other Health Problems 3.6 Psychological Problems of Shift Workers 3.7 Performance and Safety in Shift Work 3.7.1 Optimal Shift Work Scheduling 3.8 Selection of Shift Workers and Health Monitoring 3.9 Let Us Sum Up 3.10 Unit End Questions 3.11 Glossary 3.12 Suggested Readings 3.0 INTRODUCTION As organisations are getting more and more complex there is an increasing need for employing more workers to handle the increasing load. Organisations off late are accepting a diversified work force, like people from different geographical locations, different cultures and ethnicity, women workforce, physically and mentally challenged people and aged workforce to work on suitable jobs. Besides the competitive edge of an organisation, individuals are also prepared to work beyond their retirement age for various reasons, and the most important amongst them is their sustained levels 3 8 of energy thanks to improved medical aid and diet and fitness practices. There are many advantages of employing aged workers as they have more experience, The Aging Work Force, Work Hours have different kinds of wisdom, more conscientious and less turnover. However and Shift Work when they have to work in a team, these virtues serve as some drawbacks, because the present day younger workforce are more forceful, enthusiastic, are go getters and risk takers, which may not be palatable to the older workers and they find it hard to adjust to this work setup. In this unit, we will be also discussing about work hours, in which different methods of working hours will be presented under the heading of alternative work schedules. These alternative works schedule have come into vogue to ease the worker from the burden of working for long hours at the workplace with out being able to attend to other duties and responsibilities towards his / her families. When different options have to be proposed for the worker to choose from, it serves as one form of motivation, wherein, he / she could attend to the jobs and also be able to perform other activities in their free time. Shift work has also been discussed in this unit. There is a slight difference between shift work and work hours, though to a large extent they over lap. Shift work is usually planned to benefit the organisation. In this system, the organisation is maximising its production using the same work space and equipment by employing 3 to 4 sets of employees to work in the organisaiton 24/7. However, there are certain difficulties that shift workers encounter if they are engaged in shifts which are at odd time, like late in the evening or night shift. It has long lasting effects upon the physiological and psychological health. 3.1 OBJECTIVES After completing this unit, you will be able to: Define and describe Aging work force; Explain what is age diversity and its impact on the health of older workers; Describe work hours and the various alternative work schedules; Define shift work; Differentiate between types of shift systems; Analyse the health effects of shift work; Elucidate the Psychological aspects of shift workers; and Explain selection of shift workers. 3.2 THE AGING WORK FORCE After the World War II, organisations have seen an increasing number of workers in the age range of 35 to 54 years old. There is a decline in the percentage of employees who are less than 35 years. A number of factors can be attributed to this trend. i) Decline in the birth rate post World War II ii) Improved health and medical care, which is helping people to live longer, leading more productive lives. 3 9 Occupational Health iii) Removal of the mandatory retirement rules, which have allowed people who are Psychology capable to do work to continue working beyond their sixty years particularly where the jobs do not require strenuous physical performance. The latest estimation reveals that in today’s work force, the forty-five and above segment of workers represents about 31.6% of the total work force. iv) Shift from hard physical labour and agriculture to knowledge and learned skills which have taken over and completely replaced strain and endurance. Thus the older workers with their added experience and wisdom fit ideally into any kind of corporate sectors. v) Older employees did not have the kind of opportunities the younger generations have in terms of savings, life insurance, health insurance, pensioning and medical benefits. Due to poor saving rates and their own realisation that they need to earn for their survival they are taking up jobs as long as it is possible for them to work. Organisations are now forced to accommodate the older workers into their milieu and make some amendments in managing them. Since aged workers are employed in bigger numbers in the organisations, HR managers find it problematic to manage the age diversity. Managers work with certain pre-conceived ideas about older people. There are some long standing stereotypes regarding aging. These include perceptions like, the older workers have decreased performance, decreased stamina, are difficult to train, are not flexible, have greater risks and have less capacity to work. Along with these perceptions there are other assumptions that there are natural outcomes of getting old e.g. vision, hearing, stamina etc. However, it is time to dispel with these stereotypical ideas because research has systematically shown that these assumptions are for the most part false. These biased views about older workers are considered as responsible for the ongoing discrimination against them. Older workers encounter problems on the job as a result of this generalisation. They stand true only in some cases. However, many of the short comings of older workers can be overcome. In reality, many older workers are in good health, are open to change, are trainable and are willing to take reasonable risks. Actually what have been considered as limitations are now considered as assets. Considering the strengths of the older workers, they are typically more experienced, they have realistic expectations of jobs as a result of their own past experience they are easier to be satisfied and tend to respond to intrinsic reward. The most important aspect is they usually stay for a longer period with their employers and have lower absenteeism rates. There are many legislations which have been chalked out for the protection of the older workers against discrimination which the employers should thoroughly be aware of. True characteristics of the older workers need to be recognised, they should be given support and should be understood properly. The benefits for this extra effort will usually be forthcoming in the form of increased loyalty and reduced absenteeism and turnover. Novelli tries to reduce the age discrimination in the workplace and encourages employees to adopt human resource policies with multiple options to meet the needs of older workers and aid them in remaining on the job or returning to the workforce 4 0 by offering them more learning opportunities. He suggests that companies should provide technology and training courses tailored The Aging Work Force, Work Hours to older workers skill gaps in order to keep them abreast with new equipment. He and Shift Work feels that older workers can learn new things, although, the methods that are used for training younger workers will not be suitable. Their training should be in the form of setting their own pace to work or take alternative classes. This would help them to become better trained and highly performing staff. He stresses that public perceptions of older workers should change and it should be understood that by turning away the older workers, we are wasting human capital. Dowd says that we can change the mindset we have about older workers as they are able to get different kind of knowledge, experience and wisdom something which is not taught in schools and to ignore this kind of knowledge and wisdom in return for skilled employees is considered ignorance on the part of the employers. He further adds that solutions focused on older workers are important. He calls it E3- employment, education and economic development – which together form a strategy to use this untapped labour pool 3.2.1 Age Diversity and Health Baltes (1997) in his theory describes human development across the life span as a selective optimisation with compensation (SOC). That is to say, successful aging is based on the use of strategies that help the individual to select the most appropriate goal that optimises thinking and behaviour (energy, time, learning) during goal striving and that compensates for the potential loss that might have happened during the attainment of the goal (e.g. effort, time or the use of external aids). Research by Freud and Baltes (2002) have supported this formulation by revealing that the use of SOC strategies was positively associated with subjective well-being and health.