Dissertation_Paula Aleksandrowicz_12 ... - Jacobs University

4.3.2. Overall human resource management strategy
In this section, I will describe the general direction of personnel policies with regard to
older workers in Polish firms. I will describe how Polish companies react to demographic
ageing, whether some of them have a strategic orientation in HRM and how the transition of
the Polish economy and subsequent privatisation has changed personnel policy.
I will start with the definition of ´older workers´ applied by the interviewees in company
practice, and report which faults or virtues the interviewees associated with that group of
workers.
Most firm experts define older workers by their calendar age; the age thresholds ranges
from 40, through 45, 50, and 55 to 60. Other definitions centred on the tenure of workers,
ranging from 15 years – which is in line with the legislative requirement when applying for
early retirement pension available to persons who have worked on health-harming
workplaces – to 30 years. Several persons understood older workers as carriers of firmspecific
know-how. Quite often, the interviewees defined older workers in relation to
requirements at the workplaces in their firm – in terms of job-specific productivity of which
they observe older workers to fall short, or in terms of harmful working conditions which
cause early wear and tear and make a worker age quicker.
The interviewees argued in terms of declining productivity of older workers and their
shortened period of ´usability´. That was most evidently expressed by the personnel
manager from a metal- and machine-manufacturing company: “If one takes into account the
conditions in which he works, and the effort connected with his work, possibly harmful
factors at those workplaces, then that age limit is lower, it is lower – I mean here the
chances of deploying a manufacturing worker” (Firm PL-6_HRM). In this argument, two
points deserve more attention. Firstly, the deterioration of health and the declining
usefulness for the firm is seen at the same time as an process internal to the firm (as
happening at certain harmful workplaces) and external to it (as seemingly inevitable and
which cannot be prevented by the firm). Secondly, it was an argument starkly in line with
the labelling approach which states that older workers are assigned generalised opinions
about their declining performance (Kohli et al. 1983: 27-8) and with the neo-classical
labour market theory based on the deficit thesis of old age (Soltwedel/Spinanger 1976:
276). The negative opinions about older workers were more pronounced than in the case of
Germany (see section 4.2.2.), and age-related problems were placed in the opinion of Polish
interviewees to a greater extent beyond the sphere of influence of the company.
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