Engage me: The mature-age worker and stereotype threat

Abstract

As the workforce ages, and people retire later in life, organizations will need to develop strategies to engage their mature-age workers. We used a stereotype threat framework to investigate the impact of threat-inducing (young manager, young workgroup, manual occupation) and threat-inhibiting (high performance practices, mature-age practices) contextual cues on mature-age worker engagement. A total of 666 mature-age employees in Australia described their work experiences in three surveys administered over a threeyear period. Results indicated that mature-age employees who experienced stereotype threat in the workplace reported lower engagement 11-12 months later. All of the contextual cues ..