A career-lifespan perspective on strengths utilization at work

Abstract

Purpose

While the career literature does acknowledge that personal strengths may function as protective factors that increase the likelihood of positive career outcomes, the topic of strengths has predominantly been studied in the context of career guidance for adolescents and young adults. However, the evolution of strengths persists throughout the entire career and individuals’ awareness and inclination to leverage their strengths change when aging. This paper aims to examine strengths over the (career) lifespan.

Design/methodology/approach

For this purpose, a conceptual analysis was made of the interplay between age and strengths application within the work environment, based on a narrative review of both empirical and conceptual literature on strengths and lifespan (career) development.

Findings

Based on lifespan development theory and results from studies that investigate the relationship between age and strengths, it can be expected that the prominence, awareness and use of strengths, as well as the active engagement in strengths development increase with age. Also, based on the corresponsive principle it is proposed that strengths prominence is reciprocally related to the awareness, use and development of strengths. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.

Originality/value

Whereas positive psychology has contributed to research on career development by its focus on healthy functioning, human potential and well-being the implications from theorizing and research on strengths for the career-lifespan are still relatively unclear. This paper develops testable propositions regarding the relationship between age and strengths and discusses implications for the types of organizational support for strengths that workers of different ages might need.

Citation

van Woerkom, M. (2024), "A career-lifespan perspective on strengths utilization at work", Career Development International, Vol. 29 No. 6, pp. 674-689. https://doi.org/10.1108/CDI-12-2023-0433

Positive psychology as the “science of positive subjective experiences, positive individual traits, and positive institutions” (Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi, 2000, p. 5) has contributed to research on career development by its focus on healthy functioning, human potential and well-being (Robertson, 2018). For instance, previous career studies inspired by positive psychology have focused on topics like calling (Douglass and Duffy, 2015; Wrzesniewski et al., 1997), interests, meaning and purpose (Dik et al., 2015; Dik and Hansen, 2008; Kosine et al., 2008), job crafting (Berg et al., 2008) and the role of possible selves in shaping career trajectories (Ibarra, 2005).

Furthermore, it is acknowledged that strengths may function as protective factors that increase the probability of positive career outcomes and reduce risk factors related to the insecurity and continuous change in contemporary careers (Di Fabio, 2014). Nonetheless, the topic of strengths, has been predominantly investigated in relation to career guidance for adolescents and young adults (Owens et al., 2018). In this literature, it is typically assumed that individual strengths are foundational to the formation of a career identity (Helens-Hart, 2019) and that young adults should be encouraged to seek work opportunities that optimally fit their strengths and values (Dik et al., 2015).

This exclusive focus on the strengths of career starters is problematic, as career development is a lifelong process. The evolution of strengths, self-knowledge and career aspirations persists throughout an individual’s career (Baruch and Sullivan, 2022; Jiang et al., 2023), leading to distinct developmental challenges at various phases of the career lifespan (Nagy et al., 2019). Therefore, it is important to study strengths from a temporal perspective. This paper aims to answer the following research question: “What is the relationship between age and the prominence, awareness, use, and development of strengths within the workplace context?”. This study describes a conceptual analysis of the interplay between age and strengths utilization, based on a narrative review of empirical and conceptual literature. Its primary aim is to synthesize research on strengths and lifespan development and propose associations between age, strengths prominence and active engagement with strengths, rather than empirically testing these relationships (Gilson and Goldberg, 2015). Therefore, this paper may serve as a foundation for future research by developing testable propositions, delineating future research directions and pinpointing the limitations of prior studies (Hodgkinson and Ford, 2014).

The present paper contributes to the career literature by suggesting that strengths play a major role in sustainable career development over the lifespan and by proposing that the prominence, awareness and use of strengths, as well as the active engagement in strengths development increases with age. Further, based on the corresponsive principle of personality development (Caspi et al., 2005; Roberts et al., 2003), it is suggested that the prominence of strengths is reciprocally related to the awareness, utilization and cultivation of those strengths (see Figure 1). By acknowledging age-related changes in strengths profiles, strengths awareness and the need for strengths use and strengths-based development, organizations can help workers to have positive career experiences in the present and remain engaged over the long term in a sustainable career (Nagy et al., 2019; Newman, 2011).

In this paper, whenever I refer to strengths I mean personal strengths, which can be broadly defined as specific individual characteristics, traits and abilities, that are naturally present within an individual and that, when used, generate energy and allow people to function at their personal best (Tobias et al., 2023). Furthermore, I do not use a specific age delineation to distinguish between “older” and “younger” workers due to the lack of definitive criteria in the aging literature for such categorization. Moreover, aging is a continuous process without a clear threshold where its effects on job attitudes, behaviors and well-being definitively begin or end (Ng and Feldman, 2015).

First, I review the theory and empirical research on strengths. Next, I discuss the changes observed in workers’ strengths profiles and their awareness of strengths throughout their lifespan. Additionally, I examine age-related changes in workers’ need for strengths use and strengths-based development. Lastly, I discuss the practical implications of these findings and suggest avenues for future research.

What are strengths?

Strengths refer to positive individual traits and therefore to an important aspect of positive psychology (Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). Peterson and Seligman (2004) developed a classification of 24 character strengths, referring to positive traits that are morally valued in their own right (e.g. kindness, fairness) and that contribute to individual and societal flourishing. According to strengths theory, individuals will typically have between three and seven “signature strengths”, that are highly characteristic of their personality and most strongly related to beneficial outcomes such as fulfillment and invigoration (Peterson and Seligman, 2004). The concept of signature strengths aligns well with later definitions of strengths that refer more generally to the “characteristics that allow a person to perform well or at their personal best” (Wood et al., 2011, p. 16).

Whereas scholars vary in their definitions of strengths, they concur that strengths are most evident in instances of individual excellence, focusing on an individual’s capabilities rather than making comparisons across individuals (Roberts et al., 2005). This suggests that strengths refer to trait-like personality features that, when activated (state-level), are linked to a person’s optimal functioning (Meyers et al., 2023; van Woerkom et al., 2022). For example, when Robert scores high on the trait social intelligence, and functions at his personal best when this trait is activated, this means he has a strength in social intelligence. This makes the question of whether others are less or even more socially intelligent than Robert irrelevant. Additionally, scholars acknowledge that strengths are influenced, at least in part, by inherent genetic factors that predispose individuals to excel in specific tasks (Steger et al., 2007). This makes strengths more stable and trait-like compared to psychological capital which refers to more malleable individual psychological resources in terms of hope, optimism, self-efficacy and resilience (Luthans and Youssef-Morgan, 2017).

Strengths awareness, use and development

Strengths awareness

Even though strengths are inherent qualities that invigorate individuals and enable them to function at their greatest potential (Linley et al., 2007; Wood et al., 2011), people are not always fully aware of their strengths (Biswas-Diener et al., 2011; Hill, 2001). In fact, strengths might be so ingrained in an individual’s personality that their usage occurs unconsciously, blurring the line between an exceptional quality and something that is “normal” or something that “everyone does”. Therefore, many individuals struggle to accurately pinpoint and value their own strengths without external guidance (Buckingham and Clifton, 2001; Owens et al., 2018), possibly also because they and their organizations tend to pay more attention to their weaknesses than their strengths (Roberts et al., 2005; Rozin and Royzman, 2001). Identifying what is right with people by naming and labeling positive characteristics creates strengths awareness and sends powerful feedback that can be used for sustaining a successful career (Robertson, 2018). Research has shown that the mere identification of strengths can lead to enhanced happiness and decreased levels of depression (Seligman et al., 2005) and that reflecting on one’s core strengths increases positive affect, social engagement, creative problem solving and one’s immune system and reduces strain (Dolev-Amit et al., 2021; Lee et al., 2014).

Strengths use

Workers may knowingly or unknowingly use their strengths at work. For example, a teacher may engage her students by using her strength in humor or a software engineer may use her perseverance to detect a bug in the programming. A recent systematic review (Miglianico et al., 2020) indicates that strengths use is associated with higher levels of job satisfaction, work engagement, well-being and work performance. Other studies have shown that capitalizing on strengths in the workplace has a positive impact on seeing one’s job as a calling (Harzer and Ruch, 2012, 2016) and that strengths use in teams contributes to both individual and team performance (Buljac-Samardžić and van Woerkom, 2018; Meyers et al., 2023). Given these beneficial outcomes, having the opportunity to use one’s strengths plays a pivotal role in the pursuit of a purposeful and meaningful career (Aulthouse et al., 2017).

Strengths development

Strengths can be developed by refining them with additional knowledge and skills. For example, a highly creative designer can refine her strength in creativity by acquiring more knowledge of the new domain in which she operates, i.e. shoe design. Another aspect of strengths development is to learn how use the right strength, to the right amount, at the right time (Miglianico et al., 2020). In general the underuse of strengths is more of a problem in terms of peoples’ flourishing and life satisfaction than the overuse of strengths (Freidlin et al., 2017; Littman-Ovadia and Freidlin, 2020). Still, an exclusive focus on promoting the use of strengths bears the risk that strengths will be “overused” and turn into weaknesses when used too much or in inappropriate situations (Grant and Schwartz, 2011; Kaiser and Overfield, 2011; Niemiec, 2019). Strengths can be developed by learning to judge to what extent a specific situation is appropriate for strengths use, evaluate the impact of strengths use on others and dose strengths to avoid overuse or underuse (Biswas-Diener et al., 2011). One strategy to strengths development is to use one specific strength to temper or manage an overused strength (Niemiec, 2019). This strategy, also referred to as the tempering effect might for instance be applied by using a strength in self-regulation to temper a strength in zest to give more space to other team members. Another strategy to strengths development is to boost up an underused strength with a strengths that is more strongly represented (the towing effect) (Niemiec, 2019). For example, a person might use their strength in love of learning to boost up their underrepresented strength in leadership.

Strengths over the lifespan

Strengths profiles over the lifespan

Even though strengths refer to trait-like characteristics that are fairly stable, several studies show that the presence of strengths may fluctuate throughout the life-span (Heintz and Ruch, 2022; Owens et al., 2018), just like personality traits continue to develop through adulthood (Roberts et al., 2006). In general, there are small but significant positive correlations between age and character strengths. For instance, based on a sample of more than 17,000 British participants, Linley et al. (2007) found significant positive associations between age and almost all 24 character strengths, with the strongest associations being found for curiosity, love of learning (both referring to strengths of wisdom and knowledge), fairness, forgiveness and self-regulation (both referring to strengths of temperance). In line with these results, Ruch et al. (2010) reported positive correlations between age and most of the character strengths, with curiosity (strength of wisdom and knowledge), forgiveness, modesty, prudence, self-regulation (all four strengths of temperance), appreciation of beauty and excellence, gratitude and spirituality (all three strengths of transcendence) showing the strongest correlations with age. Further, a recent study by Heintz and Ruch (2022) that comprises five meta-analyses with a total sample size of more than one million participants reported significant age differences for almost all character strengths, with 91% of the effects indicating higher levels of the character strengths with increasing age. Since character strengths refer to morally valued positive traits that contribute to individual and societal flourishing, these findings are in line with Socio-Emotional Selectivity Theory (Carstensen, 1992, 1993) that proposes that as individuals grow older, they prioritize goals that maximize present affective outcomes and attach more value to behaviors that are aimed at seeking meaning in life, developing close relationships with others and constructing a sense of belonging.

Previous studies have not investigated how signature strengths, referring to people’s most prominent strengths, change with age. However, based on the corresponsive principle of personality development it can be expected that life experiences will deepen prominent characteristics that led people to those experiences in the first place (Roberts et al., 2003). When individuals end up in social contexts that are incongruent with their most important strengths, they are likely to escape prolonged exposure to such experiences. In contrast, when life experiences align with an individual’s signature strengths, they will be perceived as affirming and gratifying, prompting a deeper development of those strengths. Therefore, based on the results from studies that investigate the relationship between age and character strengths, and theory on personality development, the following proposition has been derived.

Proposition 1.

The prominence of strengths increases with age.

Strengths awareness over the lifespan

While scant research has investigated the correlation between age and awareness of strengths, the literature on lifespan (personality) development suggests that when aging, individuals develop more self-knowledge by learning from their emotions, thoughts and behaviors, and comparing themselves to others (Markus and Wurf, 1987). Specifically, individuals learn more about their positive and negative qualities (Bosma and Kunnen, 2001) as they deal with “problems, challenges, or life-adjustment situations that come from biological development, social expectations, and personal action” (Baltes, 1987, p. 614) and develop stronger and clearer (professional) identities based on this knowledge. This means that when aging, workers develop a more complete and realistic view of their strengths (Bosma and Kunnen, 2001), which is in line with a study by Dubreuil et al. (2016) that reports a positive association between workers’ age and strengths awareness.

This may also explain why a recent meta-analysis of strengths interventions in the workplace (Virga et al., 2023) established that in general, younger workers benefitted more from these interventions in terms of their levels of self-efficacy, hope, optimism and resilience compared to older workers. Whereas strengths interventions are processes designed to identify, and/or use and/or develop strengths to increase well-being or other desirable outcomes (Ghielen et al., 2018), activities focused on the identification of strengths were most prominently represented in the intervention studies that were included by Virga et al. (2023). Since youngsters have not yet had the chance to develop a complete view of their strengths, strengths interventions may be particularly useful in helping these youngsters to identify their talents and strengths and in using this self-knowledge to cope with the various stressors in the workplace.

Proposition 2.

Awareness of strengths increases with age.

Strengths use over the lifespan

When aging, people do not only become more knowledgeable about their identity, strengths and interests, they also develop an increased drive to select or create environments that fit these strengths and interests (Caspi et al., 2005). Further, when aging individuals become more responsible, dominant, self-confident and self-controlling (Roberts et al., 2006) because of the responsibilities and demands that are tied to given life phases (e.g. entering the labor market, marriage, parenthood; Specht et al., 2014). Due to this maturation process they are also more able to play to their self-knowledge (Helson et al., 1995) and to create (work) situations that fit these strengths and interests (Caspi et al., 2005) and that help them to accomplish personally meaningful goals in the workplace (Ng and Feldman, 2012). Further, compared to younger workers, older workers have had more time to climb the career ladder and move into higher jobs with more autonomy (Ng and Feldman, 2010; Wright and Hamilton, 1978) and to develop their social networks in the organization (Finkelstein et al., 2003). This makes it more straightforward for older workers to find chances to adapt their jobs in line with their individual strengths (Bindl and Parker, 2010).

Indeed, several studies report a positive relationship between age and strengths use in the work context (Dubreuil et al., 2014, 2021; Gürbüz et al., 2022; Lavy and Littman-Ovadia, 2016), whereas other studies report a positive relationship between age and perceived organizational support for strengths use (Meyers et al., 2020; van Woerkom et al., 2016).

Proposition 3.

Strengths use increases with age.

Strengths development over the lifespan

Even though there is scant research on the relationship between age and active engagement in strengths-based development, overall, research indicates a diminishing trend in growth and development among workers as they age. For instance, a meta-analysis by Kooij et al. (2011) revealed a decrease in employee interest in learning as they age and a systematic review by Kyndt and Baert (2013) indicated an age-related decrease in workers' participation in both formal and informal learning. However, a recent study by Van Woerkom et al. (2023) identified that the studies that were included in both meta studies often used measures that frame learning and development in terms of the acquisition of completely new information or as processes that are aimed at remediating weaknesses. For instance, measures often referred to whether respondents would like opportunities to learn new things from their work (Warr et al., 1979; Wong et al., 2008), the challenge of solving new problems (van Mierlo et al., 2001), correcting ones weaknesses in a systematic manner (van der Heijde and van der Heijden, 2005), asking for feedback regarding skill weaknesses (Noe, 1996), or being placed with more experienced people to see how the work should be done (Booth, 1991).

These measures may fail to capture developmental processes that align with the goals and interests of older workers. According to Socio-emotional Selectivity Theory (Carstensen, 1995) young adults tend to view their future as boundless and prioritize goals geared towards future gains, like gaining new knowledge or remediating their deficits. Conversely, older adults often see their future as finite and prioritize goals focused on immediate emotional fulfillment and meaningful experiences. As a result, older workers become more selective in their learning activities based on the realization that “you cannot be all things to all people, and therefore do not need to learn everything” (Fenwick, 2012a) and are more likely to identify learning goals in terms of optimizing their accumulated skills and strengths (Heckhausen et al., 2010; Mühlenbrock and Hüffmeier, 2020; Zaniboni et al., 2013) and building knowledge in domains they take a personal interest in (Fenwick, 2012a). This is in line with a study by Lorenz et al. (2021) that reported a positive association between age and strengths use and a negative association between age and deficit correction. Therefore, whereas younger workers are more motivated to acquire new and diverse sorts of knowledge that might advance their career (Ng and Feldman, 2015), the idea of strengths-based development may appeal particularly to older workers. This is supported by a study by Tobias et al. (2023) that showed that an intervention that stimulated teachers to develop their strengths was only beneficial for teachers’ vitality from the age of 46 and older. This intervention included support to identify strengths which may have been particularly useful for younger workers. However, the intervention also included extensive support for strengths development. For instance, participants were asked to formulate both specific and long-term goals regarding the development of their strengths, identify possible hurdles and facilitators, work on using and developing their strengths in between the training sessions, and ask for peer feedback from a colleague on their progress. These elements of the intervention may have appealed less to the younger workers.

Proposition 4.

Engagement in strengths development activities increases with age.

The relationship between strengths prominence and strengths awareness, use and development

According to the corresponsive principle of personality development (Caspi et al., 2005; Roberts et al., 2003) life experiences enhance the traits that predispose individuals to those experiences initially (Roberts et al., 2003; Roberts and Robins, 2004). The corresponsive principle connects the dynamic of social selection, where individuals choose environments aligned with their personality traits and social influence, where environmental experiences impact personality development (Caspi et al., 2005). Based on this principle it can be expected that the more individuals are actively involved with their strengths, e.g. by reflecting on them (strengths awareness) and leveraging them at work (strengths use and development) the stronger the environmental experiences will be that reinforce the prominence of their strengths. In turn, the more prominent their strengths become, the more individuals will be motivated to actively engage with them.

Proposition 5.

Strengths prominence is reciprocally related to (a) awareness, (b) use and (c) development of strengths.

Discussion

Changing demographics are leading to a growing proportion of older individuals (Getzmann et al., 2023) and a rising age diversity within the present workforce (Boehm et al., 2014). Therefore, organizations need to find ways for people to stay satisfied and engaged throughout their career (Zaniboni et al., 2014) and to develop jobs and work environments that accommodate workers across their lifespan (Zaniboni et al., 2013). Whereas the career literature has predominantly focused on adolescents and emerging adulthood (Jiang et al., 2023) career is a lifespan construct and the development of abilities, strengths, interests, self-knowledge and career aspirations continues throughout the entire career (Baruch and Sullivan, 2022; Bryant et al., 2006; Jiang et al., 2023; Lent and Brown, 2013) leading to specific career developmental issues throughout the lifespan (Nagy et al., 2019).

This paper synthesizes the literatures on strengths and lifespan development to propose that while playing to workers’ strengths is crucial for individuals of all ages (Miglianico et al., 2020), the strengths themselves, the view that workers have of their strengths and the need to leverage strengths change over the course of one’s life. The literature on lifespan development suggests that younger workers have not had the opportunity to learn about their own strengths and deficits in dealing with challenges in the work context (Baltes, 1987; Bosma and Kunnen, 2001) and tend to invest considerable time and energy in acquiring new knowledge and skills in various domains in the expectation that this might benefit them in the future (Carstensen, 1992; Ng and Feldman, 2015). Yet, when aging, workers most prominent strengths tend to deepen, and workers develop a better insight in their own strengths and a stronger need to self-select for work tasks and roles that match their strengths (Roberts and Caspi, 2003; Roberts et al., 2003). This also means that older workers have a stronger need to relate their learning efforts to their strengths rather than acquiring completely new knowledge or remediating their deficits (Van Woerkom et al., 2023).

Limitations and an agenda for future research

The main limitation of this paper is that it provides a conceptual analysis based on a narrative review and not a systematic review of the literature on strengths over the career lifespan. Narrative reviews may serve as a suitable foundation for developing new research questions, identifying future research avenues or pinpointing the drawbacks of previous studies (Hodgkinson and Ford, 2014), provided that authors remain vigilant regarding potential biases in their examination and assessment of the existing literature (Hodgkinson and Ford, 2014). While diligent efforts were made to include relevant literature regardless of its outcomes, this narrative review must be regarded as an initial step in the process of theory development. Further studies are needed to test and refine the propositions on strengths development over the career lifespan.

For example, while there is substantial evidence indicating that overall character strengths increase with age, no prior studies have examined the association between age and signature strengths. In accordance with the corresponsive principle of personality development (Roberts et al., 2003), it can be expected that in general signature strengths will become more prominent as individuals age. Yet, one qualitative study suggests that whereas a person’s most prominent strengths are usually consistently present throughout the lifespan, less prominent strengths can be developed or diminish over time, depending on individual and environmental factors (Owens et al., 2018). Future research will have to point out to what extent a person’s strengths profile deepens or may still change when aging.

Also, whereas the positive relationship between age and strengths use at work has been confirmed in several studies (Dubreuil et al., 2014, 2021; Gürbüz et al., 2022; Lavy and Littman-Ovadia, 2016), only one study was found that investigated the relationship between age and strengths awareness (Dubreuil et al., 2016) and no prior studies tested the relationship between age and active engagement in strengths development. Moreover, while it might be reasonable to anticipate that strengths become more pronounced as individuals actively engage in leveraging them, and that the increased prominence of strengths would in turn motivate individuals further to utilize them, there is still a lack of direct evidence supporting this proposition. Hence, further research is warranted to empirically test most of the propositions put forth in this paper.

Future studies could also investigate to what extent strengths use and development may function as self-regulation behaviors that contribute to successful aging at work (Kooij et al., 2020) by enhancing person-environment fit, and more specifically to demands–abilities and needs–supplies fit (Edwards, 1991). Since workers’ strengths enable them to perform at their best, utilizing and developing these strengths is likely to enhance the fit between job demands and personal abilities. Additionally, because strengths provide a sense of authenticity, and people yearn to act in line with their strengths (Peterson and Seligman, 2004), using strengths can improve the alignment between workers’ needs and job provisions by creating an environment where employees feel recognized for their positive attributes.

Further, more research is needed on how strengths interventions can be tailored to fit the needs of workers of all age groups. A recent meta-analysis of strengths interventions in the workplace (Virga et al., 2023) pointed out that younger workers benefitted more from these interventions compared to older workers. Since the intervention studies included by Virga et al. (2023) primarily focused on identifying strengths, and older workers often already have a clear understanding of their own strengths, future research could test strengths interventions for older workers that emphasize better utilization or development of their strengths (Ghielen et al., 2018).

Future research could also explore whether the diminishing trend in growth and development among workers as they age that has been found in meta studies of quantitative studies (Kooij et al., 2011; Kyndt and Baert, 2013), can indeed be explained by the type of measures that have been used, as suggested by Van Woerkom et al. (2023). Future studies could develop measures that capture the selectivity of older workers in choosing their learning activities (Fenwick, 2012b), and the preference for optimizing and refining their accumulated skills and strengths (Billet and van Woerkom, 2008; Mühlenbrock and Hüffmeier, 2020; Taneva et al., 2016) instead of gaining new knowledge or remediating their deficits.

Lastly, it would be worthwhile to explore strengths application in non-traditional workers of all ages, such as freelancers, online platform workers and contract agency workers (Rabenu, 2021), who form an increasing proportion of the workforce (Baruch, 2004). Many nontraditional workers may work for two employers simultaneously (e.g. the staffing agency and the client organization) and may therefore form perceptions of organizational support from more than one source (Baran et al., 2012). Future research could explore how both types of organizations can help workers to benefit from their strengths over their entire career lifespan and how self-employed can be supported in managing their own strengths application.

Practical implications

Organizations would benefit from adopting an individualized, tailor-made approach to employee strengths, rather than a “one size fits all” strategy that focuses on deficits and overlooks unique qualities (van Woerkom and de Bruijn, 2016). However, the type of support that employees might need for their strengths may differ between younger and older workers. Research suggests that the strengths of younger workers are still crystallizing and that younger workers have a less complete view of their strengths. This implies that organizations may support young workers by helping them to get more insight in their strengths for example by helping them reflect on their experiences and successes, by using the Values in Action Inventory of Strengths (VIA-IS; Peterson and Seligman, 2004) or conducting reflected best self-exercise (Roberts et al., 2005).

Furthermore, although young workers have less of a need to capitalize on their strengths compared to older workers, strengths use has been found to have beneficial effects for workers of all ages. Therefore, and also to compensate for their lesser ability to capitalize on their strengths in the workplace, younger workers might benefit from strengths use support for example by aligning their tasks with their strengths or by encouraging them to make use of complementary partnering with others (Linley and Harrington, 2006). This is also in line with a study by Meyers et al. (2020) who found that organizational support for strengths use enhanced the work engagement of all workers, but particularly that of younger workers. However, as becomes evident from a study by Kooij et al. (2017) short term goal setting interventions that pay little attention to developing strengths awareness are less likely to be helpful for these younger workers. This study showed that a four-hour intervention that stimulated workers to craft their job in line with their strengths only enhanced the person-job fit of workers who were relatively older. Possibly, this type of intervention is insufficient for younger workers who may lack the strengths awareness to develop effective strengths crafting plans.

Young workers have a strong focus on acquiring new knowledge and skills in a wide variety of tasks (Zaniboni et al., 2013) which could advance their careers over the long haul (Ng and Feldman, 2015). Therefore, interventions that emphasize strengths development are less likely to be effective for younger workers. However, since younger workers are also more prone to suffer from stressors in the workplace (Witte et al., 2007) and score lower on many indicators of psychological wellbeing compared to older workers (Zacher, 2021), learning more about their strengths may serve as an anchor point that may channel learning efforts when job strain is getting too high.

Older workers are likely to have more pronounced strengths (Heintz and Ruch, 2022; Linley et al., 2007; Roberts et al., 2003; Ruch et al., 2010) and a more complete view of their strengths (Bosma and Kunnen, 2001; Dubreuil et al., 2016). Also, because of their increased levels of dominance and self-control (Roberts et al., 2006), higher positions (Ng and Feldman, 2010) and more developed social networks in the organization (Finkelstein et al., 2003) they are in a better position to capitalize on their strengths. Nonetheless, since older workers also have a stronger need for (work) environments that fit their strengths and interests (Caspi et al., 2005) it may still be worthwhile to optimize their person-job fit by stimulating strengths crafting. The previously mentioned study by Kooij et al. (2017) shows that even relatively short goal-setting interventions that do not pay a lot of attention to creating strengths awareness may be helpful to do so.

In terms of organizational support, older workers are most likely to benefit from an appreciation of their learning preferences, which have shifted from acquiring new knowledge and skills and correcting their deficits and towards more selective types of learning that deepen and refine their current knowledge base (Canning, 2011; Fenwick, 2012b) and build upon their strengths (Fenwick, 2012a). Although the importance of learning and development is being stressed in many contemporary career frameworks (Baruch and Sullivan, 2022; Kornelakis, 2014), older workers struggle with processing of new information because it appeals to several cognitive functions that are known to decrease with age (Salthouse, 2012). Since older workers also suffer from stereotypes as being less motivated to change or to participate in training and career development (Ng and Feldman, 2012), they might benefit from acknowledgment that they are still interested in learning but have different learning needs compared to younger workers.

Figures

Figure 1

Conceptual model of the relationships between age and strengths prominence, awareness, use, and development