Transformational leadership and employability among support staff workers with long tenure.

BACKGROUND: In the changing world of work, there is an urgency to gain insight into determinants of the employability among support staff workers with long tenure whose functions may become outdated as their competencies may no longer match the requirements of future jobs. OBJECTIVE: The specific aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between transformational leadership and employability. METHODS: Support staff (n = 236) from a university participated in an online questionnaire focusing on five dimensions of employability (occupational expertise, anticipation and optimization, personal flexibility, corporate sense, and balance) and transformational leadership (identifying and articulating a vision, providing an appropriate model, fostering the acceptance of group goals, providing individual support, and intellectual stimulation. RESULTS: Identifying and articulating a vision (ß= 0.247, p < 0.001), providing an appropriate model (ß= 0.196, p = 0.002), fostering the acceptance of group goals (ß= 0.298, p < 0.001) and providing individual support (ß= 0.258, p < 0.001) were associated with higher balance scores. No significant associations were found between the transformational leadership subscales and the other dimensions of employability. CONCLUSION: The current study found that just one specific dimension of transformational leadership was associated with only one aspect of employability for our target group of long-term employed support staff workers with a high level of job security.

With a little help from my friends: adopting a P-E fit perspective in understanding the value of organizational learning climate for sustainable employability.

Purpose: The objective of our study was to investigate how organizational learning climate (measured as developmental opportunities and team support for learning), career commitment, and age are related to employees' self-perceived employability, vitality and work ability (e.g., their sustainable employability). Our study adopted a P-E fit perspective building upon the notion that sustainable employability is a function of both the person (P) and the environment (E) and tests a three-way interaction between organizational learning climate, career commitment, and age. Design: In total, 211 members of the support staff of a Dutch university completed a survey. Hierarchical stepwise regression analysis was used to analyze the data. Findings: Only one of the two dimensions of organizational learning climate that we measured, namely the developmental opportunities, appeared to be associated with all indicators of sustainable employability. Career commitment only had a direct positive relationship with vitality. Age was negatively related to self-perceived employability and to work ability, but not to vitality. The relationship between developmental opportunities and vitality was negatively influenced by career commitment (a negative two-way interaction effect), while a positive three-way interaction effect was found between career commitment, age, and development opportunities, and with self-perceived employability as the outcome. Theoretical and practical implications: Our findings confirmed the relevance of adopting a P-E fit perspective on sustainable employability, and of considering the possible role of age in this. It requires more detailed analyses in future research to unravel the role of age in the shared responsibility for sustainable employability. In practice, the results of our study imply that organizations should provide all employees with a working context that facilitates learning, however, with a special focus on older employees, for whom it is a particular challenge to protect their sustainable employability, possibly due to age-related stereotyping. Originality: Our study adopted a P-E fit perspective on sustainable employability and examined the association between organizational learning climate and all three components of sustainable employability: self-perceived employability, vitality and work ability. Moreover, it investigated whether and how the employee's career commitment and age influence this relationship.

Train to sustain: a randomised controlled trial evaluation of a vitality training employing behaviour-change techniques.

Introduction: This paper reports on the effects of a 9-week vitality training that employed behaviour-change techniques and was evaluated using a randomised controlled trial (RCT) in three large companies based in the Netherlands. Methods: A total of 84 adult employees from three participating organisations in the Netherlands were enrolled in the study. A parallel group RCT design was employed and participants were assigned using individual random assignment to either an intervention (n = 38) or a waitlist control group (n = 46). The intervention consisted of a 9-week vitality training employing the behaviour-change techniques of self-persuasion, implementation intentions, and self-efficacy, which was delivered in-house over five fortnightly 2-hour sessions. Primary outcomes (i.e., reported energy and stress) and secondary outcomes (i.e., reported daily life satisfaction and work capacity) were assessed prior to, immediately after, and 3 months following the intervention. Results: A mixed MANOVA revealed a significant interaction effect between treatment group and time period for the combination of reported energy, stress, daily life satisfaction, and work capacity. Subsequent univariate ANOVAs revealed significant interactions between treatment group and time period for reported energy, stress, and daily life satisfaction; however, not for reported work capacity. Improvements in outcomes were observed for both groups following their completion of the vitality training; however, not all improvements reached statistical significance. Reported self-efficacy regarding managing work-life balance was found to mediate the relationship between the effects of the intervention and reported energy; however, such an effect was not found for stress. Discussion: An intervention drawing upon evidence-based behaviour-change techniques shows promise for improving indicators associated with burnout; although, it is recommended that in future research a larger-scale evaluation be conducted over a longer time period with an active control group to establish effectiveness.Clinical trial registration: https://www.anzctr.org.au/, ACTRN12622001268730.

Menopause and Sustainable Career Outcomes: A Science Mapping Approach.

This paper provides a systematic review of the phenomenon of menopause at the workplace from a sustainable career perspective, by highlighting its major themes along with the evolution and tendencies observed in this field. A conceptual science mapping analysis based on co-word bibliographic networks was developed, using the SciMAT tool. From 1992 to 2020, 185 documents were retrieved from the Web of Science. In the first analyzed time span (1992-2002), postmenopausal women, health, and risk factors appeared to be the motor themes (well-developed and important for the structure of the discipline under focus), and disorder was an emerging or disappearing theme in the phenomenon under research. In the second studied period (2003-2013), risk and health were motor themes, menopausal symptoms was a basic or transversal theme (important for the discipline but not well-developed), coronary heart disease was a specialized theme (well-developed but less important for the structure of the research field), and postmenopausal women was an emerging or disappearing theme (both weakly developed and marginal to the field). In the third studied period (2014-2020), menopause, breast cancer, and menopausal symptoms were motor themes, Anxiety was a specialized theme and risk and body mass index were emerging or disappearing themes. Sustainability of women's careers in the second half of life is of increasing importance given the increasing equal representation of men and women in working organizations, and the impact of the changing nature of work in the 21st century on older workers.

Towards a better understanding of the relationship between feedback and nurses' work engagement and burnout: A convergent mixed-methods study on nurses' attributions about the 'why' of feedback.

BACKGROUND: Previous studies on the effects of providing feedback about quality improvement measures to nurses show mixed results and the factors explaining the variance in effects are not yet well-understood. One of the factors that could explain the variance in outcomes is how nurses perceive the feedback. It is not the feedback per se that influences nurses, and consequently their performance, but rather the way the feedback is perceived. OBJECTIVES: This article aims to enhance our understanding of Human Resource attributions and employee engagement and burnout in a feedback environment. An in-depth study of nurses' attributions about the 'why' of feedback on quality measurements, and its relation to engagement and burnout, was performed. DESIGN AND METHODS: A convergent mixed-methods, multiple case study design was used. Evidence was drawn from four comparable surgical wards within three teaching hospitals in the Netherlands that volunteered to participate in this study. Nurses on each ward were provided with oral and written feedback on quality measurements every two weeks, over a four month period. After this period, an online survey was distributed to all the nurses (n = 184) on the four participating wards. Data were collected from 91 nurses. Parallel to the survey, individual, semi-structured face-to-face interviews were conducted with eight nurses and their ward manager in each ward, resulting in interview data from 32 nurses and four ward managers. RESULTS: Results show that nurses - both as a group and individually - make varying attributions about their managers' purpose in providing feedback on quality measurements. The feedback environment is associated to nurses' attributions and these attributions are related to nurses' burnout. CONCLUSIONS: By showing that feedback on quality measurements can be attributed differently by nurses and that the feedback environment plays a role in this, the study provides an interesting mechanism for explaining how feedback is related to performance. Implications for theory, practice and future research are discussed.

"I Just Can't Take It Anymore": How Specific Work Characteristics Impact Younger Versus Older Nurses' Health, Satisfaction, and Commitment.

Given the increasing shortage of active nurses in industrialized countries throughout the world, it is of utmost importance to protect their health, satisfaction, and commitment so that they can continue working in their healthcare institution. Building upon the proposed pattern of specific relationships developed by Houkes et al. (2003), we investigated a model of relationships among working conditions (quantitative, emotional, and physical demands), labor relations (quality of interpersonal relations and psychological support), work content (meaning of work, influence at work), and employment conditions (opportunities for development) on the one hand, and health, job satisfaction, and institutional affective commitment on the other hand, for younger versus older nurses. We used data of 3,399 nurses from the Netherlands and 3,636 nurses from Poland from the larger European Nurses' Early Exit Study (NEXT) and performed longitudinal structural equation modeling (SEM) and multi-group analyses. The results showed that the proposed pattern of relationships generally holds, but that the nurses' level of commitment is more determined by meaning of work than by opportunities for development and that psychological support is associated with job satisfaction (and not only with burnout as hypothesized, in both the Netherlands and Poland). Comparing younger (<40 years) versus older (≥40 years) nurses, we found ample support for differences in the proposed model relationships across age category, some being in line with and some being contradictory to our expectations. We argue that a non-normative, tailor-made approach to aging at work might help us to protect the nurses' career sustainability across the life span. This study provides evidence-based practical recommendations on how to enhance the health, job satisfaction, and commitment of nurses throughout their working life.

The Importance of Intra-Organizational Networking for Younger Versus Older Workers: Examining a Multi-Group Mediation Model of Individual Task Performance Enhancement.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of intra-organizational networking on individual task performance, via employability. Moreover, this study also examines whether this relationship differs for younger (<40 years) versus older employees (≥40 years). A self-report questionnaire was distributed among a sample of employees working in a range of different types of organizations (n = 374). We conclude that employability fully mediates the relationship between intra-organizational networking and individual task performance. However, this mediation effect did not vary between younger and older employees. This study extends past research by applying a human capital perspective (in particular, social capital) and life-span development frameworks for explaining employability and task performance enhancement across one's working life. It provides useful insights for stimulating career development and individual performance growth, by means of social capital, herewith increasing the individual employee's chance to survive in nowadays' labor markets.

Understanding the Contribution of HRM Bundles for Employee Outcomes Across the Life-Span.

Using the Job Demands-Resources model literature and the life-span theory as scholarly frameworks, we examined the effects of job demands and job resources as mediators in the relationship between bundles of used HRM practices and employee outcomes. In addition, we tested for age differences in our research model. Findings confirmed the hypothesized original 2-factor structure representing maintenance and development HRM practices. Structural Equation Modeling analyses showed that the maintenance HRM bundle related directly and negatively to employee outcomes, without moderating effects of age. However, job resources appeared to mediate this relationship in a positive way as it also did for the development HRM bundle. Whereas this study showed the 'driving power' of the actual use of HRM bundles through job resources, regardless of the employee's age, this study also suggests a 'dark side' of HRM. In particular, we found that development HRM bundles may also increase job demands, which, in turn, may result in lower levels of beneficial employee outcomes. These empirical outcomes demonstrate the strength of the driving power eliciting from job resources preceded by any HRM bundle. Moreover, this effect appears to apply to employees of all ages. Our moderated-mediation model appeared robust for several control variables. Overall, this study provides an extension of the well-known Job Demands-Resources model by including maintenance and development bundles of HRM practices used by employees that have a differential effect on job demands and job resources which in turn have an impact on employee outcomes.

"Knowing Me, Knowing You" the Importance of Networking for Freelancers' Careers: Examining the Mediating Role of Need for Relatedness Fulfillment and Employability-Enhancing Competencies.

Research has shown the importance of engaging in networking behaviors for employees' career success. Networking behaviors can be seen as a proactive way of creating access to career-related social resources and we argue that this type of proactive career behaviors might be particularly relevant for freelancers who cannot depend on an organizational career system supporting their further development, yet whose careers are characterized by high levels of uncertainty and unpredictability. To date, however, our understanding of how freelancers, being a category of workers that are deprived of an organizational context of support for career development, can safeguard their employability, is limited. Therefore, this study addresses this gap and investigates whether freelancers' networking behaviors are positively associated with career outcomes, through the mediating role of the need for relatedness fulfillment and employability-enhancing competencies. Hypotheses are tested via Structural Equation Modeling using a sample of 1,874 freelancers from Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. The results generally support our hypotheses, providing evidence for a significant association between networking behaviors and need for relatedness fulfillment, and between networking behaviors and employability-enhancing competencies. Moreover, we found a significant association between need for relatedness fulfillment and employability-enhancing competencies, being the mediators in our research model and the outcomes of career satisfaction and perceived future career opportunities. Implications for career development in the contemporary workplace are discussed, with particular attention for need for relatedness fulfillment, employability-enhancing competencies, and sustainable careers of freelance workers.

To Leave or Not to Leave? A Multi-Sample Study on Individual, Job-Related, and Organizational Antecedents of Employability and Retirement Intentions.

In view of the aging and dejuvenation of the working population and the expected shortages in employees' skills in the future, it is of utmost importance to focus on older workers' employability in order to prolong their working life until, or even beyond, their official retirement age. The primary aim of the current study was to examine the relationship between older workers' employability (self-)perceptions and their intention to continue working until their official retirement age. In addition, we studied the role of potential antecedents of their perceived employability at three different levels: training and education in current expertise area as well as in an adjacent expertise area (individual level factor), learning value of the job (job level factor), and organizational career management practices (organizational level factor). Data were collected by means of e-questionnaires that were distributed among two groups of Dutch older (45-plus) white collar workers. The samples consisted of 223 employees of an insurance company, and 325 university workers, respectively. Our research model was tested separately in each sample using Structural Equation Modeling. We controlled for effects of respondents' (self-)perceived health and (self-)perceived financial situation. Similar results were found for both samples. First, the relationship of perceived employability with the intention to continue working until one's retirement age was positive, whereas the relationship between a perceived good financial situation with the intention to continue working until one's retirement age was negative. Secondly, as regards the potential antecedents, results showed that the learning value of the job was positively related to perceived employability. In addition, an employee's perception of good health is a relevant correlate of perceived employability. So, whereas perceived employability contributes to the intention to continue working until one's retirement age, a good financial situation is a push factor to retire early. In order to promote the labor participation of older workers, this study indicates that organizations should focus on the learning possibilities that are inherent to one's job rather than on providing additional training or career management. Further research is needed to test the generalizability of our results to other samples.

A Sustainable Career Perspective of Work Ability: The Importance of Resources across the Lifespan.

In this study, we examine employees' perceptions of their work ability from a sustainable career perspective. Specifically, we investigate the role of a person's perceived current fit (i.e., autonomy, strengths use and needs-supply fit), and future fit with their job as resources that affect perceived work ability, defined as the extent to which employees feel capable of continuing their current work over a longer time period. In addition, we test whether meaningfulness of one's work mediates this relationship, and we address the moderating role of age. Our hypotheses were tested using a sample of 5205 employees working in diverse sectors in Belgium. The results of multi-group Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) provide mixed evidence for our hypotheses. While all four resources were significantly and positively related to perceived meaningfulness, only needs-supply fit was positively related to perceived work ability. Strengths use, on the other hand, was also significantly related to perceived work ability, yet in a negative way. These findings underscore the importance of distinguishing between several types of resources to understand their impact upon perceived work ability. Interestingly, the relationship between future-orientedness of the job and perceived work ability was moderated by age, with the relationship only being significant and positive for middle-aged and senior workers. This suggests an increasingly important role of having a perspective of future fit with one's job as employees grow older. Contrary to our expectations, meaningfulness did not mediate the relationships between resources and perceived work ability. We discuss these findings and their implications from the perspective of sustainable career development.

Live to Work or Work to Live? An Age-Moderated Mediation Model on the Simultaneous Mechanisms Prompted by Workaholism Among Healthcare Professionals.

The "aging population" implies an increased proportion of older professionals and a growing demand for healthcare services. Healthcare professionals are often highly committed to their work which can be reflected in high levels of workaholism, being a double-edged sword that can prompt both positive and negative mechanisms, differently affecting younger and older healthcare workers. The present study aims to gain insights into the relationships between healthcare professionals' age, workaholism and job satisfaction, by estimating the sequential mediating roles of workload perceptions and emotional exhaustion. We used original survey data, including information on 750 healthcare professionals. Overall, the negative relationship between workaholism and job satisfaction was shown to be sequentially (and partially) mediated by workload perceptions and emotional exhaustion. Multi-Group SEM analyses revealed differences across three age groups (under 35; between 35 and 50; over 50). Only in the two younger age groups, we found a direct and positive relationship between workaholism and job satisfaction. In all age groups, we found the negative relationship between workaholism and job satisfaction to be sequentially (and partially) mediated by workload perceptions and emotional exhaustion. The indirect effects were relatively stronger in the younger age group. Workaholism can prompt both a "gain spiral" and "a loss spiral" among healthcare professionals. The first reflects workaholism to function as a job resource fostering job satisfaction (only for the two younger age groups). The second reflects workaholism to function as a job demand reducing job satisfaction. This mechanism was shown to be stronger with an increasing age.

Please Don't Look at Me That Way. An Empirical Study Into the Effects of Age-Based (Meta-)Stereotyping on Employability Enhancement Among Older Supermarket Workers.

At present, individuals increasingly have to take ownership of their working lives. This situation requires them to self-manage and plan their careers. However, individuals' career management does not happen in a vacuum. Studies have therefore stressed the importance of organizations introducing Sustainable Human Resource Management to share the responsibility for individuals' employability. This is expected to motivate especially disadvantaged workers, such as older workers (≥ 50 years) and those working in lower-skilled jobs, to work longer across the life-span. In view of the growing scholarly and societal attention for Sustainable Career Development (SCD), the present study examines the relationships between workers' chronological age (comparing older workers with younger and middle-aged groups, respectively) and dimensions of self-reported employability, and how perceptions of negative (meta-)stereotyping regarding older workers' productivity, reliability, and personal adaptability moderate these relationships. To examine how possible underlying psychological mechanisms can affect individuals' labor market decisions and behaviors, we developed hypotheses derived from socio-emotional selectivity and self-categorization theory, which we tested using data collected among supermarket workers in various age groups (N = 98). Moderated regression analyses showed that, in line with our hypotheses, perceptions of negative age-based (meta-)stereotyping amplifies the negative effect of older workers' age on their self-perceived employability. In particular, we found that: (1) the older worker group reported lower levels of three of the distinguished employability dimensions (i.e., anticipation and optimization, corporate sense, and balance, but not occupational expertise and personal flexibility) and (2) perceptions of stronger negative (meta-)stereotypes regarding older workers in the organization had a moderating effect on the relationship between age group and four of the distinguished employability dimensions (i.e., occupational expertise, anticipation and optimization, corporate sense, and balance, but not personal flexibility). We conclude that age group membership as well as negative age-based (meta-)stereotypes deter older workers from enhancing their employability, which may potentially impact their career decisions and opportunities, especially in view of swift changing labor market demands. We argue, therefore, that Sustainable HR practices should focus on opposing negative age-based (meta-)stereotyping and on creating an inclusive work climate, meanwhile enhancing workers' ambitions and career opportunities over the life cycle.

Job satisfaction, job stress and nurses' turnover intentions: The moderating roles of on-the-job and off-the-job embeddedness.

AIM: Using an interactionist perspective to test on-the-job embeddedness and off-the-job embeddedness as possible moderators for the predictive effects of job satisfaction and job stress on nurses' turnover intentions. BACKGROUND: As turnover worsens nurse shortages across the globe, researchers needs to find ways to work out and reduce nurses' turnover intentions. By exploring contributory factors, namely on-the-job and off-the-job embeddedness as two distinctive forms that both act as moderators, we add to the literature on effective nurse retention and highlight that incorporating off-the-job factors can provide a more realistic understanding of why people consider leaving their organization. DESIGN: Survey of 361 nurses of the United Kingdom's (UK's) National Health Service, in 2016. METHOD: We conducted hierarchical multiple regression and simple slope analyses. RESULTS: Job satisfaction was negatively associated with turnover intentions, and this negative relationship was stronger when off-the-job embeddedness was high (vs. low). Job stress was positively related to turnover intentions, yet high (vs. low) off-the-job embeddedness buffered this relationship. In contrast, when on-the-job embeddedness was high (vs. low), the relationship between job stress and turnover intentions were even stronger. CONCLUSION: Results showed that using an interactionist perspective is useful in predicting nurse turnover. Nursing management should be made aware of the importance of being embedded off-the-job to prevent nurse turnover. This paper issues guidelines to form a more comprehensive staff retention programme for the healthcare sector.

The Best of Both Worlds: The Role of Career Adaptability and Career Competencies in Students' Well-Being and Performance.

In addition to acquiring occupation-specific knowledge and skills, students need to develop a set of career self-management skills - or resources - that helps them to successfully maneuver the various career-related challenges they face and that stimulate their well-being, engagement, and performance in studying tasks. In the current study, we apply the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) theory in an educational setting and suggest that career adaptability and career competencies are important career resources that predict both life satisfaction and academic performance via students' satisfaction with the choice of their major and study engagement. Undergraduate students (N = 672) from nine different colleges and universities in Lithuania participated in the study. The results revealed that career adaptability and career competencies were positively linked to students' life satisfaction, both directly and via study engagement. In addition, these career resources were positively, yet indirectly, related to academic performance via study engagement. Overall, the results suggest that career resources contribute to study engagement, life satisfaction, and academic performance. The results of our study further support JD-R theorizing and its applicability in student samples. Further theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Bridge Over an Aging Population: Examining Longitudinal Relations Among Human Resource Management, Social Support, and Employee Outcomes Among Bridge Workers.

This two-wave complete panel study aims to examine human resource management (HRM) bundles of practices in relation to social support [i.e., leader-member exchange (LMX), coworker exchange (CWX)] and employee outcomes (i.e., work engagement, employability, and health), within a context of workers aged 65+. Based upon the social exchange theory and the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) framework, it was hypothesized that HRM bundles at Time 1 would increase bridge workers' outcomes at Time 2, and that this relationship would be mediated by perceptions of LMX and CWX at Time 2. Using a longitudinal design, hypotheses were tested in a unique sample of Dutch bridge employees (N = 228). Results of several structural equation modeling analyses revealed no significant associations between HRM bundles, and social support, moreover, no significant associations were found in relation to employee outcomes. However, the results of the best-fitting final model revealed the importance of the impact of social support on employee (65+) outcomes over time.

Learning Climate Perceptions as a Determinant of Employability: An Empirical Study Among European ICT Professionals.

This study investigated the role of age in the relationship between perceptions of learning climate and self- and supervisor-rated employability among European Information and Communication Technology (ICT) professionals. The psychological climate for learning was operationalized by three indicators, namely the perceptions that employees have of the learning value of their job, supervisor support for learning, and the organizational support for learning. As hypothesized, a Structural Equation Model demonstrated that the relationship between age and perceptions of learning climate was negative. The model also showed a strong positive relationship between learning climate and self-reported and supervisor-rated employability. Furthermore, learning climate perceptions appeared important for employability irrespective of life or career stage. An explorative bootstrapping-based test suggested that older workers with managerial responsibilities profit less from psychological learning climate for self-reported and supervisor-rated employability than older workers at non-managerial levels. These findings have important implications for human resource practices that aim to increase lifelong employability.

"I WILL SURVIVE" A Construct Validation Study on the Measurement of Sustainable Employability Using Different Age Conceptualizations.

Though the importance of sustainable employability throughout people's working life is undisputed, up till now only one attempt for a conceptual definition has been made (van der Klink et al., 2016). Following the suggestions to further refine and improve this definition recently put forward by Fleuren et al. (2016), we propose an approach to sustainable employability that is based on the Ability-Motivation-Opportunity (AMO) framework, and incorporates three indicators: the ability, the motivation, and the opportunity to continue working, respectively. As sustainable employability is considered to be an important aspect of successful aging at work, this study used four different conceptualizations of aging at work to set up convergent and divergent validity of our operationalization of sustainable employability: calendar age, organizational age (job and organizational tenure), functional age (work ability), and life-span age (partner and children). We formulated several hypotheses that were tested by analyzing data from an online survey among 180 employees from Dutch public service organizations who filled out a questionnaire on different age concepts, and their ability, motivation, and opportunity to continue working. Multiple regression analyses were performed, and results showed that the four conceptualizations of aging were differently related to the three indicators of sustainable employability. Life-span age, in terms of having children, had the strongest negative relationship with the ability to continue working, organizational age (i.e., organizational tenure) had the strongest negative relationship with the motivation to continue working, and functional age had the strongest negative relationship with the opportunity to continue working. Moreover, functional age was significantly negatively related to the other two indicators of sustainable employability too, while life-span age appeared to enhance the ability and motivation to continue working (in terms of having children) and the perceived opportunity to continue working (in terms of having a partner). Calendar age was only important for the opportunity to continue working and appeared to have a negative association with this outcome variable. These results lend support to our proposed operationalization of sustainable employability by showing that the three indicators are differently related to different age conceptualizations thus expanding previous research on the conceptualization of sustainable employability.

Job Satisfaction, Retirement Attitude and Intended Retirement Age: A Conditional Process Analysis across Workers' Level of Household Income.

In the contemporary workplace, insight into retirement behaviors is of crucial importance. Previous empirical evidence has found mixed results regarding the relationship between work attitudes, such as job satisfaction, and retirement behaviors, suggesting that further scholarly examination incorporating moderating and mediating variables into retirement models is needed. Drawing on comparative models of attitude to retirement, we hypothesized a direct relationship between job satisfaction and intended retirement age for workers with a high household income and an indirect relationship between job satisfaction and intended retirement age, via retirement attitude, for workers with a low or mean household income. We collected data from a sample of 590 United Kingdom workers aged 50+. Using conditional process analysis, we found that the underlying mechanisms in our research model differ according to socio-economic status. We found no direct effect between job satisfaction and intended retirement age. However, an indirect effect was observed between job satisfaction and intended retirement age, via retirement attitude, for both low- and mean-household income individuals. Specifically, the relationship between job satisfaction and retirement attitude differed according to socio-economic group: for high-household income older workers, there was no relationship between job satisfaction and retirement attitude. However, for low- and mean-household income older workers, we observed a negative relationship between job satisfaction and retirement attitude. Otherwise stated, increases in job satisfaction for mean and low household income workers are likely to make the prospect of retirement less attractive. Therefore, we argue that utmost care must be taken around the conditions under which lower income employees will continue their work when getting older in order to protect their sustainable employability.

Toward a mediation model for nurses' well-being and psychological distress effects of quality of leadership and social support at work.

Given the lack of active nurses in industrialized countries throughout the world, in combination with demographic changes, it is of utmost importance to protect nurses' well-being and to prevent psychological distress, because of their strong association with premature occupational leave. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of quality of leadership and social support at work on well-being and psychological distress of nurses and to determine whether nurses' overcommitment mediates the relationship between the abovementioned determinants and the outcomes. A cross-sectional survey design was used to gather our data. This study utilized part of the database of the Nurses' Early Exit Study. A total of 34,771 nurses (covering all nurse qualifications) working in hospitals, nursing homes, and home-care institutions in 8 European countries filled out a questionnaire (response rate = 51.4%). For all model variables (job satisfaction, satisfaction with salary, positive affectivity, personal burnout, negative affectivity, quality of leadership, social support from immediate supervisor, social support from near colleagues, and overcommitment), psychometrically sound, that is, valid and reliable measures were used. Outcomes from testing a structural equation mediation model indicated that, respectively, positive and negative influences of leadership quality and social support from supervisor and colleagues on nurses' well-being and psychological distress are partially mediated, that is, reduced, by nurses' overcommitment. Social work environment is highly important in relation to nurses' well-being and psychological distress.