Keywords

6.1 The Situation in Japan: A Possible Projection of What the Future Situation Will Be in Europe and France

Population ageing is a major issue in Japan, which has the highest old-age dependency ratio of all OECD countries (over 50 persons aged 65 and above for every 100 persons aged 20–64 in 2017, ratio that is projected to rise to 79/100 in 2050) [3]. The Japanese government is asking the industrial sector to offer employment opportunities to older people, with a target of 70 years old from 2021. Forecasts predict that this age will rise to 75 by 2040. Currently in Japan, over 30% of men and 20% of women aged 70–74 are employed in a professional occupation. It is predicted that the labour force participation rate in this portion of the population will continue to increase over the next ten years [3] (Fig. 6.1).

Fig. 6.1
2 dot plots of percentage of labor force in O E C D countries. Values are approximate. Plots for different age groups of men and women with highest value: 55 to 59 (J P N, 91), (S W E, 90). 60 to 64 (I S L, 90), (I S L, 80). 65 to 69 (I S L, 65), (delayed retirement, 50). 70 to74 (delayed retirement, 45), (delayed retirement, 32).

Percentage of the population in the labour force in each age group in OECD countries in 2017 (and 2030 for Japan). Reproduced from [3] with permission; all rights reserved

Full size image

In Europe, there are many disparities in the legal retirement age. The average is 65 years old. In France, the legal age for retirement is 62, and discussions are ongoing to raise this to 64. In 2020, the average retirement age in France was 62.8 years old [1].

6.2 Careers Surpassing a Half-Century: The Main Challenges

What will happen if the career span of all workers surpasses 50 years? Organisational “sclerosis” due to a predominance of the most experienced—but also the oldest—employees in the most senior positions; a drop in employee motivation; constraints and limitations associated with biological ageing; a reduced capacity for innovation… Raising the retirement age without any real strategy causes serious problems in companies and could have an impact on safety.

Following are some of the main challenges that Japanese companies are already facing:

  • skills and knowledge updating and the opportunity to offer training or retraining possibilities throughout a person’s career;

  • managing the mix of generations: generations of grandfather, father and grandson working for a same company;

  • the ability to offer rewarding positions to the most experienced employees, but not necessarily in senior management;

  • ergonomics, and more generally taking into account human factors, whether in the design of workstations or the work organisation, in order to accommodate the mix of generations.

6.3 What Strategies Can Be Used to Manage This Situation? A Few Examples Being Tested in Japan

6.3.1 Giving Employees the Possibility of Updating Their Skills and Knowledge Throughout Their Career

Skills and knowledge updating throughout an employee’s career seem to be an option favoured in Japan. This updating is in several areas: technical skills, managerial skills, interpersonal and communication skills. Major changes are also occurring in instructional methods and ways of learning, with more emphasis being placed on flipped learning, or in other words doing the conceptual learning remotely and using attendance time to practise applying the skills. Other instructional methods are favoured such as simulation, mentoring or the buddy system and on-the-job coaching. These changes have an impact on both the trainees and the trainers.

In high-risk companies, it seems important to have the most experienced people contribute to keeping alive the memory of the most serious accidents, which are becoming less and less frequent. However, there should be clear guidelines as to which safety best practices they can share. After all, certain practices which were acceptable a few years ago may not be so today. Thus, it seems necessary to provide a selection of safety best practices to perpetuate. Integrating the consideration of human and organisational factors in professional training and development programmes also appears to be increasingly important in the field of safety. For management, this takes the form of courses on safety leadership.

To avoid organisational “sclerosis” potentially brought on by a predominance of the most experienced people in senior management positions, Japan is exploring what the right timing and pace might be for undertaking this intensive updating of skills. This exploration includes the retraining of the most experienced workers (Table 6.1).

Table 6.1 Example of an intensive training offering in a future company
Full size table

6.3.2 Managing the Mix of Generations

In Japan, it is relatively common for a generation of grandfather, son and grandson to be working for the same company. Companies must, therefore, manage this mix of generations which can create tensions, particularly when the grandfather generation monopolises the senior management positions.

It is indeed customary to offer the management and executive positions to the most experienced people, i.e. those in the 60–70 age group. However, if all these positions are held by the most experienced people, this considerably limits opportunities for the next generation, in the 50–60 age bracket, to advance to these positions. Although they will be senior in terms of skills, they will not be allowed to access such managerial functions. This situation could lead companies to limit the hiring of young workers and cause the 50–60 generation and the next to leave the organisation or to lose motivation due to the lack of prospects. There is a risk of organisational “sclerosis”, which could affect these companies’ capacity for innovation.

Moreover, the backgrounds, training, expectations vis-à-vis the company and even the values of the different generations working together can differ. The company must manage this diversity.

6.3.3 Offering Rewarding Positions to the Most Experienced

Japan is experimenting with different ways to offer people rewarding positions without raising their salary or offering senior management positions to the workers with the most experience.

Three types of positions or retraining possibilities are currently being tested for the oldest people:

  • on-site trainer or coach;

  • technical expert;

  • independent consultant.

For the most experienced people to be placed in an on-site trainer or coach position, they must learn new teaching and coaching skills, decisions must be made regarding the practices to be taught, and workstation ergonomics must be adapted.

If they are to be placed in positions as technical experts, they require access to training and continuous professional development in order to regularly update their technical and interpersonal skills. And lastly, positioning these experienced people as independent consultants implies managing their exit from the company and requires them to have the ability to make the shift from manager to consultant and accept this change in status.

6.3.4 Ergonomics and Consideration of Human and Organisational Factors

The concomitance of several generations within a same company requires rethinking workstation ergonomics to adapt to the needs and limitations of each individual. In addition to workstation ergonomics, this mix has an impact on work organisation overall, whether in terms of physical elements such as workspace management—since, for example, the most experienced people are attached to having their own office, or in terms of work schedule or even of managing telecommuting or blended working, for example [2].

6.4 Discussion

These elements from Japan should prompt a reflection in France and Europe on the management of long careers and their potential impact on safety.

Three questions arise directly from the reflections and experiments undertaken in Japan on how to design a professional development programme that spans the entire career in order to improve the management of safety and the prevention of major accidents.

  • What might constitute a “rewarding position” for the most experienced employees?

  • What types of professional experience or skills and knowledge development might be needed to offer older employees these “rewarding positions”?

  • How can the norms governing work design and organisation be changed to ensure safe operations while integrating the mix of generations within companies?

Two additional questions should also be considered in order to investigate the impact on safety and are discussed below.

6.4.1 Age Limit and Safety

Given the biological laws of ageing, are there any professions in which a lower age limit should be imposed for the sake of safety?

Indeed, the decline in cognitive and psychomotor performance and the higher risk of incapacity or sudden death (that come with ageing) could lead to a person becoming unsuitable for their role. Some frontline operator professions come to mind, such as airline pilot, nuclear power reactor operator, air traffic controller, train driver or surgeon. The literature on the ageing of airline pilots shows that it is very difficult to determine an age limit, because (1) the effects of ageing differ widely between individuals, and (2) by drawing on their experience, these operators develop compensatory strategies which allow them to perform their tasks very satisfactorily despite a significant decline in cognitive function measured separately from their occupation. Thus, the practical outcome in aviation depends on the economic situation: when there are too many pilots, impairment due to ageing is invoked in order to oblige pilots to retire, whereas when more pilots are needed, the justification mentioned above is invoked to keep anyone whom medical and professional bodies deem still fit to fly [4].

6.4.2 Generational Mix and Safety

What harmonious local and contextual generational mix, what balanced local and contextual age pyramid would enable a better management of the impact of long careers on safety?

Economic considerations are pushing the retirement age upwards, but the established general rule then applies to age pyramids that are possibly very different from one company to the next. Yet, when it comes to safety, what matters within a company is to have a balanced ecosystem with a harmonious intergenerational mix and above all to avoid retiring large numbers of highly experienced employees at a time and then massively replacing them with inexperienced young people without having some kind of process in place for the transmission of empirical knowledge. This type of “mass replacement” may prove more acceptable or even advisable in future, with rapid and frequent technological changes giving youth a growing advantage. However, the knowledge required to manage the safety of increasingly complex systems will not be limited to the most recent technical component. Therefore, a balance must be struck between the interests of productivity and economic performance and those of safety. Moreover, in addition to being specific to each company, the age pyramid also depends on the past and current attractiveness of the particular industry.

More than the “usability” of older workers, what should be worked on is the attractiveness, the distribution and maintaining employability across the entire age pyramid. This would imply managing retirement ages differently according not only to the occupation, the harshness of its working conditions and its relationship to risk, but also according to the company, the age pyramids, etc.