A measure of intergenerational tension in the workplace: Some preliminary findings

An ageing population is changing the nature of the workplace. When combined with age discrimination legislation, employers now face the fact that they can no longer ignore and then quietly retire their older workers. One outcome of this is that the proportion of older workers is increasing. Further, they intend to stay at work longer and resist being an easy target for organisations wh.en they restructure. Th.is study proposes that the continued and increasing presence of older workers is responsible for a ph.enomenon called intergenerational tension which is defined as a latent or covert form of intergroup conflict in the workplace caused by value and attitudinal differences between the generations. The study measures these differences with an instrument called the Intergenerational Tension Questionnaire which was administered to employees from a large Western Australian government department Preliminary findings indicate the presence of intergenerational tension along the broad divides of generational differences, organisational practices and employee demographics. Introduction Governments throughout the western world are becoming increasingly worried about their ability to meet the pension and health care costs of an ageing population. The baby boomers, or those born between 1946 and 1961 are the cause of the problem. According to a recent report commissioned by the Department of Health and Aged Care (Australia), once the baby boomers retire there will be only 2.5 workers between the ages of 15 and 64 to support them compared with the current ratio of more than five-to-one (Access Economics, 2001). Faced with this dilemma, governments in Australia and elsewhere are considering ways of reducing the anticipated financial burden of caring for them. For example, governments can either reduce levels of spending on aged care or increase taxes both of which are politically unpopular strategies. Alternatively, the ratio of young to old can be improved by actively supporting an increase in the number of young migrants provided there are jobs for them. Another, less attractive option to improve the young to old ratio (at least for older citizens) is euthanasia. A more appealing and less controversial alternative, however, is for organisations to become more flexible when it comes to retaining and recruiting older workers including raising the retirement age to 70 years. To encourage this, Australia has already touted the option of offering taxation concessions to retirees who re-enter the workforce. Therein lies a dilemma because in today's economic environment workers over the age of 40 years, Jet alone 70 years, are finding that organisations are not predisposed to employing them. The reluctance of organisations to employ older workers can be traced in part to the notion of retirement itself. Prior to World War 2, working was usually a better option than retiring on a meagre pension and few benefits (Fyock & Dorton, 1994). 1bis all changed, however, thanks to the rapid economic growth that followed World War 2. The new found prosperity enabled governments to boost spending on pensions, health care and other benefits for retirees to the point where retirement became an attractive alternative to work. Increasingly generous company funded retirement schemes and the high interest rates of the 1970s and 1980s also enabled many older workers to retire sooner than they might otherwise have done. The outcome was an environment in which older workers were expected to retire quietly to make way for the younger workers. ln fact, not to do so was almost regarded as being unfaithful to one's employer (Teh, 1999). Today, however, early retirement is no longer the attractive option it once was. As some older workers have found, low interest rates on savings have forced them to reassess their planned retirement age while others, particularly women, simply cannot afford to retire (Patrickson & Hartmann, 1996). Gone, too, are the seemingly attractive redundancy offers that were routinely offered to older workers when organisations downsized, or, in the case of government departments, privatised (Encel, 1998). Regardless of the reasons for staying in the workforce, today's older workers know only too well that the organisation they entered 20 or more years ago is not the same. Then, loyalty was highly regarded and rewarded with regular pay rises, preferred placements and the certainty of promotion if desired. Progress, therefore, was predictable and unless truly incompetent or dishonest, nobody was ever sacked. Today, older workers would argue that loyalty and seniority rarely seem to count. Promotions are hard to come by and seem to go to younger workers who fit the corporate image. The younger workers know how to sell themselves and how to get noticed. For older workers unused to these practices, applying for promotion or a preferred transfer often becomes a pointless exercise because they feel that a younger worker, regardless of experience, will be favoured. Realising this, many older workers have become disillusioned to the point where they feel cheated; that the organisation they served faithfully for so many years has Jet them down. This circumstance is often referred to as a breach of one's psychological contract or that tacit understanding between the employee and employer in which aspects of employment such as stability, defined career paths and seniority related privileges are exchanged for "socioemotional elements such as loyalty and support" (Rousseau & McClean Parks cited in Wolfe Morrison & Robinson,