Organizations workforce demographic age preferences: multiple case-studies from Brazil

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to identify whether there is some common pattern between organizations that give primacy either to younger workforce or to older one.

Design/methodology/approach

It depicts the empirical evidence of eight case studies and some theoretical contributions thereof. All case units are considered outstanding employers in Brazil business scenario, given the magnitude of their human resource (HR) feats and society acknowledgements. Taken together, they are eight representative cases derived from Época magazine and Great Place to Work® Institute 2013 list.

Findings

Case units exhibited strongest group age preferences on an ongoing basis. Rather, they depicted an unbalanced labor force demographic age frame for the sake of their own HR choices. As a result, they all could be labeled as age bias companies in a more or less degree. Given that their options (i.e. percentage of preferences) have been somewhat consistent during the period of analysis, one may therefore infer that such options have been buttressed by the leadership held values. Surprisingly, all case units had not provided logical arguments or wise explanations in light of their decisions related to it. Moreover, the companies had not offered compelling evidence that they were implementing robust diversity and inclusion polices aiming to provide an equalitarian treatment to all age groups or that they were at least paying attention to these issues in a coherent form. In fact, they have been astonishingly silent on these matters.

Research limitations/implications

The purposeful sample strategy that was carried out in this study does not permit that the results be generalized. Actually, they are derived from only a specific cohort of companies – to some extent, they are outliers in the list of the best organizations to work for in Brazil – that has been noticeable for their extreme workforce age options.

Practical implications

The case units sample showed to have huge difficulties to mitigate organizational age bias effects in their headcount. In fact, the majority of the case units that were perused demonstrated to give a consistent priority for either having either younger workforce or older one.

Originality/value

Overall, it is expected that this study may contribute to diversity management theory by bringing further knowledge about how some of the best organizations to work for in Brazil implement their workforce demographic age policies.

Citation

Vasconcelos, A.F. (2016), "Organizations workforce demographic age preferences: multiple case-studies from Brazil", Journal of Management Development, Vol. 35 No. 3, pp. 406-427. https://doi.org/10.1108/JMD-08-2015-0111