Employee diversity at the workplace is seen in terms of religion, race, gender, as well as age. Employee motivation is a key factor towards the success of any organization. Employees, with time age, and as such experience different changes in their adult life which alters the way in which they view life.
The effects of these age related changes are transferred to the work place. These changes also do have a bearing on employees’ motivation. As such there is need for organization managers to acknowledge the fact that ageing employees have unique needs, which have to be met in order to motivate them to be more productive. There are a number of motivational factors that organizational manager can employ to motivate the aging labor force.
There a number of motivational factors that can affect motivation for an aging labor force. It is vital for organizational managers to effectively understand personality complexities of aging employees (Kanfer and Ackerman 441). Studies reveal that aging employees go through certain personality changes which effectively affect motivate. With age, personality becomes more stable but there are certain personality traits that become weaker.
Such include unreservedness, neuroticism, and openness, which reduce significantly as employees grow old. As such aging employees become less appreciative of new knowledge and skills. Meanwhile, aging employees notably show increase in conscientiousness and agreeableness. As such, organizational managers should use Maslow’s needs hierarchy as the basis of understanding and meeting employees needs (444).
Moreover, organizational managers should understand that as employees become older the need to protect their self concept increases. This has implications as they will be less willing to appreciate new career development activities that are seen as interfering personal self concept. Rewarding is another factor that will affect motivation. Because of the changes that the aging employees goes through, organization manager needs to understand the right kind of rewards to use on the aging workforce.
Thus the best kinds of rewards for an aging labor force are those that reinforce Vocational interests (445) as well as personal values; studies show that older employees have a higher appreciation of personal values such as of peace and security (447). Furthermore, employees young and old experience both negative and positive emotion. However, older employees experience lesser negative emotions and more positive emotional stability (446). As such the use of positive emotions will motivate aging employees.
Organizational mangers can make older employees learn and set more achievable goes through leadership. Studies reveal that two leadership styles, transformational and transactional, as most effective in helping aging employees set and meet organizational as well as personal goals (Bruch, Tekie, Voelpel and Walter 1). This is despite there having a various dimensions of each of these leadership styles (4).
Transformational leadership has been connected with more employees’ satisfaction at the work place, improved employee output and increased labor input (effort). This also leads to goal commitment (6). Through Transactional leadership, manager will be able to motivate their employees to share resources with the intention of meeting shared goals (7). As such, a combination of these two leadership styles by organizational managers provided an opportunity, not only to learn about goal setting but also leads to increased goal commitment.
An aging labor force in importance to an organization as is part of labor force diversity. Aging employees exhibit personality and emotional stability which means that they provide a more table workforce. To motivate them organizational managers must understand their unique development needs, values and interests for the benefit of the organization.
Works Cited
Bruch, Heike, Tekie, Eden., Voelpel, Sven and Walter, Frank. ‘Leadership and the aging workforce: The impact of leadership style on the motivation of older employees. Academy of Management journal. 2006. Web.
Kanfer, Ruth and Ackerman, Phillip. Aging, adult development, and work motivation. Academy of Management Review. 2004. Web.