Age Diversity in the workplace. An Organizational Perspective

Over the last few decades, the workforce has become increasingly diverse on various dimensions, including age. One of the implications of the longer working lifespan is that the distance among employees at both extreme ends of the age continuum is growing. Very young employees must work together with considerably older colleagues and vice versa, making it compelling for organizations to effectively manage this age diversity. However, despite the growing relevance of this phenomenon, research on the implication of age diversity in the workplace is still much underexplored than that on race and gender. This volume aims to explore the impact of age diversity on individual, group and organizational outcomes, offering a critical perspective on the way organizations frame and manage age diversity. Although scholars seem to reach a consensus about the necessity to engage a more age-diverse workforce, its conceptualization, strategic impact, and related HR practices are not well-balanced in the literature. As individuals and societies, organizations still struggle to deal with the complexity associated to unprecedented demographic changes. Facing the demographic challenge in the workplace calls into question conventional ways of management thinking, doing and being. This volume bridges theoretical and empirical approaches to provide insights on the challenges of valuing workers at any points of their professional life, from youth to retirement, embracing perspectives that span from the individual, to the group and organizational levels of analysis.