Working and ageing - Cedefop - Europa

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Working and ageing
Guidance and counselling for mature learners
organisational turnover are partly different from those behind voluntary
retirement; whereas turnover is predicted by the degree of organisational
commitment, retirement is predicted by work centrality and leisure activities
(Adams and Beehr, 1998; Schmidt and Lee, 2008). The push and pull effects
(Knuth and Kalina, 2002; Gruber and Wise, 1999) come into play: the
alternative to leave the organisation must be sufficiently attractive, for instance
by offering generous economical security (pull effects), or the direct or indirect
pressure executed at the workplace to leave (push effects) must be strong
enough to motivate the person to take the decision to leave.
13.3. The case
In 2006, the Swedish Armed Forces decided to launch a three-year project
aiming at phasing out older officers with a competence profile that did not
comply with current and future demands. At the same time, young soldiers
and sailors would be recruited to positions where willingness to participate in
international peacekeeping forces would be required. Transferring older
officers to civilian jobs would be based on consent, without formally
discharging them. Their military competence plus some supplementary
education would make them attractive in civilian trades – this was the idea.
The aims of the project were to arrive at balance in personnel quantity and
competences, and to recruit and wind up personnel concurrently.
The project started with a test trial encompassing a few units, before it was
extended to the entire organisation. Officers older than 38 were encouraged
to apply to a programme with up to one yearʼs pay without job obligations and
access to supplementary education and a personal external job coach.
Conditions included that the supervisor of the unit – the commanding officer
– must approve, and that the applicant had to resign before joining the
programme; this could not be revoked. Unlike many other armed forces
internationally, the pension age for Swedish officers is the same as in the
labour market at large. This means that the model applied could be also
relevant to other areas of business where a company may wish to shrink the
organisation and phase out older employees without firing anybody.
The project ended in 2009. It was then changed to a permanent career
switching programme, which is currently one of the tools employed by the
army in its continued endeavours to rejuvenate the organisation.
The aim of the present study, carried out in 2009, is to document the
strengths and weaknesses of the project, and to identify the reasons why it