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Patterns of Engagement in Workplace Learning Amongst Older Workers from Local Government Sectors

Megan Tones   

This thesis concerns the impact of the ageing demographic on the workforce in the near future. According to national statistical data, one third of the current workforce is aged 45 years or older, and participation in the labour force drops after the age of 50 years. A continuation of this pattern will produce a labour shortage within the next 20 years, as mature aged workers elect to leave the workforce with fewer younger workers to occupy their places. Specifically, the meta-theory of selective optimisation with compensation and subsequent developments is being used as a framework to develop a quantitative survey to measure learning and development specific goal selection/restructuring, goal engagement and goal disengagement from individual and organisational perspectives.

Transcript

Interviewer: I’d like to welcome Megan Tones, welcome Megan

Megan Tones: Thank you

Interviewer: Megan could you share with us what your Research Title is and provide us with a brief explanation of your project?

Megan Tones: Okay my thesis title is the Patterns of Engagement in Work Place Learning Amongst Older Workers from Local Government Sectors, it sounds a lot more complicated than it is in some ways, I guess the main word in there I need to define is engagement which to me after much searching means the interaction in a goal directed activity that in our case involves new learning so it’s the interaction between the older or mature aged worker and their work place environment to learn something new so it could involve on the job training, it could involve a promotion to a higher level position, all these different ways that careers can basically develop beyond just simply doing a training program.

Interviewer: That’s very interesting, can you tell us how did you find this gap in the research?

Megan Tones: The idea of the ageing work force is obviously a fairly hot topic at the moment, the main issue with that is that people are retiring fairly early from their 50s onwards leaving quite a gap in the work force as there’s fewer younger skilled workers to take their place and a lot of the literature out there simply said that older workers participate in training less often than younger workers but that research really overlooks the value of experience that older workers have to offer and the many different ways that they can learn and develop in their careers.

Interviewer: Can you briefly outline your project and the major findings that you have discovered so far?

Megan Tones: I’m going to be looking at the topic from the perspective of life span development psychology which is basically about studying people at all stages throughout their lives, middle age is probably one of the most complicated that’s not received very much attention in the past but what we’re basically looking at from that perspective is that middle aged people have quite a lot of demands on their time and the nature of career has changed so much that it’s not linear and straight forward like it use to be so older workers have sort of really got to source opportunities and ways that they can develop such as finding new jobs for themselves and also the work place can be supportive in that manner as well by finding basically new uses for their older workers so they might find a way to harness their previous experience by enabling them to train younger workers or mentor them, there are a few organisations in Australia such as Coles Myer and I think Westpac that have training programs for their older workers because mature age people obviously match the customer demographic and also they do things like pairing up the mature age worker with a younger one and they sort of share the task so that they can mutually benefit one another and accomplish more than either of them would have alone.

Interviewer: That is absolutely fascinating and from your studies and the research you’ve done, what do you think these implications are going to be for education?

Megan Tones: For education I think that these findings, well I can only speculate at this stage but I’m presuming that we’ll find that mature age workers are quite a diverse group who learn in different ways depending on their own characteristics and also what their jobs are and what opportunities and demands they have in their jobs so I think we’ll find a lot of alternative ways beyond just sending older workers off to formal training courses to improve their skills, well we’re hoping to find ways that older workers can learn and develop without disrupting their current work paths so a fairly seamless work and learning experience for them.

Interviewer: That fantastic, thank you so much for this interview

Megan Tones: Thank you.