Workplace Social Capital in the Development and Implementation of a Senior Policy

Abstract

Senior policies have been introduced by many Danish companies with the intention of retaining senior employees, but implementation can be challenging and may create tension at the workplace.This study aims to explore how social capital at the workplace may support or counteract the development and implementation of senior policies. A qualitative case study approach was used to collect and analyze interview data from managers, union- and H&S representatives, and senior employees at eightheen workplaces.The analysis reveals that successful development and implementation of a senior policy rely on legitimacy, transparency, and involvement of relevant parties in the process, as well as a good fit between the policy and the companies’ structure for collaboration. Workplace social capital is discussed as a supporting factor for senior employee retention, and a reciprocal positive relationship between implementing senior policies and procedures and the social capital of the workplace is suggested.

Full text

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Nordic journal of working life studies
Workplace Social Capital in the Development and
Implementation of a Senior Policy1
❚ Karen Albertsen2
Senior Researcher, Team Working Life, Valby, Denmark
❚ Per H. Jensen
Adjunct Professor, Department of People and Technology, Roskilde University, Denmark
❚ Ulrik Gensby
Senior Researcher, Team Working Life, Valby, Denmark
❚ Flemming Pedersen
Director, Team Working Life, Valby, Denmark
ABSTRACT
Senior policies have been introduced by many Danish companies with the intention of retaining
senior employees, but implementation can be challenging and may create tension at the work-
place. This study aims to explore how social capital at the workplace may support or counteract
the development and implementation of senior policies. A qualitative case study approach was
used to collect and analyze interview data from managers, union- and H&S representatives, and
senior employees at eightheen workplaces. The analysis reveals that successful development and
implementation of a senior policy rely on legitimacy, transparency, and involvement of relevant
parties in the process, as well as a good t between the policy and the companies’ structure for
collaboration. Workplace social capital is discussed as a supporting factor for senior employee
retention, and a reciprocal positive relationship between implementing senior policies and proce-
dures and the social capital of the workplace is suggested.
KEYWORDS
age management / companies’ initiatives / early retirement / organizational justice / organizational
trust / senior benet / senior policy / senior scheme / workplace social capital
Introduction
Within the last two decades, changes in demography, combined with labor short-
ages, have in many of the western countries increased focus on how to retain
more senior employees in the labor market. Accordingly, researchers have identi-
ed factors contributing to retirement or prolonged working life (e.g., Andersen et al.
2021; Carlstedt et al. 2018; Meng et al. 2020). At societal level, measures have been
taken to support a longer working life. This development is, however, not necessarily
without tension and conicts. Researchers within the eld of welfare have described
1 You can nd this text and its DOI at https://tidsskrift.dk/njwls/index.
2 Corresponding author: Karen Albertsen. E-mail: kal@teamarbejdsliv.dk.

2 Workplace Social Capital in the Development Karen Albertsen et al.
how nancing pension systems, for example, may lead to a conict between the older
and younger generations, and they have named it intergenerational justice (Hess et al.
2017). Such intergenerational conicts may also play out within the companies.
Many companies have tried to meet labor shortages by developing and introducing
senior policies at workplace level (Albertsen et al. 2020a). However, implementation of
a senior policy often entails specic schemes for employees over a certain age and may
accordingly also create tension at the workplace. So, given that a senior policy may be
associated with an age-based reallocation of resources and opportunities, it may also
give rise to intergenerational conicts in as much as younger employees consider it to
be unfair if older workers are offered preferential treatment (e.g., Friis et al. 2008).
Implementing senior policies may require a certain level of legitimacy, transparency, and
organizational trust to succeed. To avoid the experience of injustice, arbitrariness, and
opacity among employees, Hilsen and Midtsundstad (2014) argue that award criteria
should be developed in a way that creates legitimacy among managers, employee rep-
resentatives and employees and they should be visible and controllable. In other words,
the process, and the result of allocating the senior benets must be experienced as fair,
and the likelihood of this can be assumed higher in organizations with a high level of
resilient trust between management and employees.
Purpose of the present study
This qualitative study aims to explore how social capital at the workplace may support or
counteract the development and implementation of senior policies at the workplace level.
It was assumed (1) that the process of preparing, implementing, and maintaining
a senior policy at work interplays with the social capital in the company, and (2) that
the success of the senior policy depends on the extent to which it is supported by, and
contributes to the social capital at the workplace.
The study is based on the qualitative results from the SeniorWorkingLife study.1
The overall purpose of the SeniorWorkingLife study is to examine the push and stay
mechanisms in the Danish labor market to support and ensure continued working life
for senior employees and their retirement decisions in a dignied manner.
One of aims of the qualitative part of the study was to examine the companies’ con-
siderations and actions for retaining of senior employees. Results from the rst round
of the study have previously been published in Danish in (Albertsen et al. 2018, 2020b).
This article draws on data from the rst and second rounds of data-collection and ana-
lyzes them in the perspective of workplace social capital.
This qualitative study comprises interview data from 18 case companies chosen to
represent diversity in the target of the core tasks (production, work with symbols or
work with humans), and interviews at each workplace were collected to cover employer
as well as employee perspectives.
Retention of senior employees in the Danish labor market
Since the turn of the century, several welfare reforms have been implemented in
Denmark. These reforms have aimed to raise the general retirement age of the workforce.

Nordic journal of working life studies 3
Thestate pension age has been indexed based on life expectancy and is expected to reach
72years of age in 2050, while at the same time, early retirement opportunities have been
restricted (Jensen et al. 2023). In parallel, policymakers have encouraged companies to
apply senior policies, and to some extent, this has been implemented during the period
2000–2008 in different company contexts. Between 2010 and 2020, the retention rate
of senior employees aged 60–64 rose in Denmark from 37% to 54% (OECD 2019,
2021).2
It is difcult to dene exactly what is meant by a senior policy, and other terms exist
for the same issue (e.g., age management, age-awareness policies). However, the main
dimensions of senior policies are often considered to be (1) job recruitment, (2)training,
development and promotion, (3) exible working practices, (4) ergonomics/job design,
and (5) changing attitudes within organizations (e.g., Walker 1998; Mykletun et al.
2012). Studies show that about 47% of Danish workplaces make use of senior policy
instruments targeting employees at 55 years or older (Jensen 2022). The most common
practices in Denmark are exible work hours, access to more days off/longer holidays,
and less burdening work tasks (Albertsen et al. 2020a). These practices are sometimes
implemented as senior policies offered only to employees over a certain age, and some-
times integrated into the general personnel policy or a ‘life-phase’ policy of the company
(Albertsen et al. 2020b). The study by Jensen (2022) also found that employers perceive
senior policy as an effective instrument to retain older workers.
In a Danish context, collective agreements on senior policies are part of the main
collective bargaining process, which serves as the overall framework for formulating
local workplace senior-agreements with specic benets based on the framework of the
main agreement. In addition, companies can formulate specic local workplace policies
beside the main agreement. These are decided by the works committee (SU) at the work-
place, the working environment organization (AMO) or unilaterally by the management
of a company. These policies may – or may not – be linked to collective agreements but
can very well play along with these. While the process of designing, implementing, and
maintaining a senior policy at the workplace can support the retention of employees,
challenges in the collaboration at work may also occur, which may counteract the inten-
tions behind the policy (Albertsen et al. 2020b).
The role of the psychosocial work environment in retention of
senior employees
Studies have found that good relations between management and senior employees
(Berglund et al. 2017; Browne et al. 2018), and collaboration and togetherness between
colleagues (Amilon & Larsen 2019) may delay retirement from the labor market. If
employees experience low recognition from managers, low organizational justice, low
trust in management, low management quality, and low predictability, then they are
more likely to choose an early transition to retirement (Thorsen et al. 2016).
In line with these ndings, others have found that workplaces with lower social cap-
ital, organizational justice, and quality of management have a higher rate of early retire-
ment (Breinegaard et al. 2017) and that the likelihood of a later retirement age increases
with higher recognition from management, higher inuence, possibilities for develop-
ment, and a higher level of information about decisions and work (Andersenetal. 2021).

4 Workplace Social Capital in the Development Karen Albertsen et al.
Sewdas et al. (2020) found that employees with poorer relationships with colleagues
had an almost three times higher likelihood for voluntary early retirement compared to
employees with good relationships with colleagues.
Armstrong-Stassen and Schlosser (2011) examined fairness in relation to senior
policies and their implementation in the workplace. They found that company imple-
mentation practices of senior policies were related to how senior employees experienced
social belonging in the company.
A meta-analysis based on 151 empirical studies concluded that older workers’
social environment was related to early retirement, and thereby underlined the relevance
of the organizational climate for successful aging with regard to the motivation of older
people to continue working (Topa et al. 2018). The authors suggest, that ‘if the orga-
nization provides a climate for successful aging, older employees would perceive better
job opportunities’ (Topa et al. 2018, p. 13) that in turn would be positively related to
affective commitment and discourage early retirement. In other words, the quality of
relationships and collaboration at the workplace seems to be of high importance for the
retention of senior employees.
Within the area of workplace intervention research, studies have found that the
success of an organizational workplace intervention depends on the extent to which the
intervention can t into the culture of the organization (Nielsen & Miraglia 2017). It is
therefore also likely that implementation of a senior policy will interact with the exist-
ing culture and inuence relationships and collaboration at the workplace. On the one
hand, senior policies can be decided and implemented in ways that support and increase
good collaboration. On the other hand, senior policies can be met with – or contribute
to – conicts, distrust, and injustice, counteracting the initial intentions behind them.
Therefore, it is crucial to address the ways in which a senior policy is designed, imple-
mented, and maintained.
Workplace social capital as the theoretical framework
The theoretical approach for this article is based on the concept of social capital hav-
ing its roots in sociologists such as Pierre Bourdieu (1986), James Coleman (1988), and
Robert Putnam (1995). Over the years, the concept has been dened in many ways, pri-
marily differing as to whether social capital is seen as an individual resource, a collective
resource, or a combination (Claridge 2004).
In this study, we draw on the denition of workplace social capital as: ‘… the social
relations that develop in the solution of the company’s core task’ (Hasle et al. 2010,
p. 29). According to this denition, the quality of social relations is determined by the
trust that characterizes the relations between employees and managers, and between
employees and by the experience of justice, that is, the experience of whether distributive
procedures in the company are fair (Hasle et al. 2010; Olesen et al. 2008).
Organizational justice and organizational trust represent two different research
areas, although studies have found close associations between the two (Ambrose &
Schminke 2003).
Trust within an organizational context is characterized by being both an antecedence
to, and a result of, successful collective action. Successful collaboration can foster higher
levels of trust and, in turn, further increase the likelihood of successful collaboration

Nordic journal of working life studies 5
(Leana & van Buren 1999). Many researchers have agreed that trust requires a will-
ingness to be vulnerable ‘based on positive expectations of the intentions of another’
(Rousseau et al. 1998, p. 395).
According to the theory, organizations with strong social capital are characterized
by generalized trust, in the sense that the trust does not necessarily rest on direct knowl-
edge or experience with all individuals, but indirectly rests on norms and behaviors
generalized to the whole organization (Leana & van Buren 1999).
Research within the eld of justice has primarily distinguished between three
different forms of justice (Ambrose & Schminke 2003; Colquitt et al. 2001; Kim &
Mauborgne 2003; Virtanen & Elovainio 2018):
• Distributive justice: is about whether the distribution of goods, for example, the dis-
tribution of work tasks, is perceived as reasonable. This does not necessarily mean
that the distribution is equal, but that it has taken place according to principles that
are perceived as reasonable.
• Procedural justice: is about the extent to which the process that has led to the distri-
bution of the goods is perceived as reasonable. Were the principles applied in a con-
sistent manner to different people and was it on an informed basis? Were the parties
concerned consulted? Were there opportunities to appeal or challenge the decision?
• Interactional justice: is about the extent to which the parties involved feel that they
are treated with dignity and respect by those who carry out procedures and decisions.
Intergenerational justice, as mentioned in the introduction, can be assumed to show up
in relation to senior policy in all three forms; as justice related to the distribution of
preferable goods or treatments, as whether the procedures and principles for the alloca-
tion of the goods are fair for all ages of employees, and as the perception of respect in
the interaction between employees and managers.
Hilsen and Midtsundstad (2014) have developed a model that divides senior
schemes into four categories, depending on whether the award criteria are univer-
sal and needs-dependent and whether the schemes are tailor-made or standardized
(Table 1).
Table 1 Four main types of senior schemes depending on the award criteria and benets
(Hilsen & Midtsundstad 2014 [Author’s translation]).
Universal Needs-dependent
Tailor-made 1. Universal and tailor-made initiatives.
Everyone has a right to the scheme,
and the scheme is individually adapted.
2. Needs-dependent and tailor-made.
The scheme is assigned by the
management and is individually adapted.
Standardized 3. Universal and standardized schemes.
Everyone has a right to the scheme,
and everyone gets the same.
4. Needs-dependent and standardized.
The scheme is assigned by the
management, and ever yone gets the same.
Award criteria may challenge the perception of justice (distributive, procedural, inter-
actional, or intergenerational) in different ways, depending on the types of criteria and
benets in play. We will refer to this categorization of award criteria in the Discussion
section.

6 Workplace Social Capital in the Development Karen Albertsen et al.
Methodology
The study was conducted as a qualitative and exploratory study in a multiple case
study design (Flyvbjerg 2006; Yin 1994). It was exploratory in the sense that the pur-
pose was to gain detailed and practical knowledge about companies’ considerations
and actions in relation to retaining senior employees. The study was multiple, as sev-
eral companies participated, and each of them included the perspectives of different
actors.
Potentially relevant companies were identied and selected through four knowledge
sources: (1) contacts with professionals and organizations from practice, (2) peers in the
eld of working life research, (3) ongoing dialogue with the project advisory board, and
(4) mapping of relevant grey literature that had previously identied companies with
focus on senior initiatives.
In the rst round of data-collection (2017–2018), a total of 28 potentially relevant
companies were identied. A group of 15 companies were selected to represent a diver-
sity of industries within three very broad categories of the core task: (1) work with pro-
duction (i.e., the job function is to work on processing, producing, or moving things),
(2) work with symbols (i.e., ofce work, administration, analysis, IT, etc.), or (3)work
with humans (i.e., service, care, etc.) (Jensen et al. 2020). The 15 companies were con-
tacted, and of these, nine agreed to participate. The second round of data collection
(2020–2022) took place in the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the recruitment of
cases turned out to be more difcult. In total, we contacted 64 potentially relevant com-
panies, of which 46 did not have the time and resources to participate or did not have
the required focus on seniors, nine were positive for participation, but not for the time
being, and nine workplaces ended up as part of the sample.
Table 2 Interviews from rst and second round of data collection from each of the three main
categories of industries.
Qualitative interviews – Individual and group interviews
Number
of case
companies
Number of
managers/HR
representatives
Number of
union and H&S
representatives
Number
of other
employees
Work with production of
things and transportation
6 16 10 17
Work with symbols and
knowledge
7 15 13 15
Work with humans 5 9 9 13
Data was collected through a combination of individual and group interviews among
managers, union- and health & safety representatives and employees. From the 18 com-
panies, 31 managers or HR representatives, 32 union or health & safety representatives,
and 45 employees were interviewed. Table 2 summarizes the number of interviews from
both rounds, and Table 3 summarizes the characteristics of the interviewed employees.
The companies were basically selected as ‘best cases’, in the way that they all had some
relatively well-developed senior policies.

Nordic journal of working life studies 7
Table 3 Characteristics of respondents from each of the three main categories of industries. We
have distinguished between unskilled (without vocational education), vocational education, shor t
(1–2 years), medium (3–4 years), and long (5+ years) higher education.
Characteristics of employees
Female Male Mean age
(min-max)
Education
Work with production of things and
transportation
2 15 64 (58–72) Shor t (1–2 years): 3
Vocational education: 12
Unskilled: 2
Work with symbols and knowledge 8 7 64 (60–72) Long (5+ years): 4
Medium (3–4 years): 5
Vocational education: 6
Work with humans 8 5 62 (54–72) Long: 2
Medium: 3
Short: 1
Vocational education: 5
Unskilled: 2
All interviews were conducted as semi-structured interviews based on two different
interview guides (one for management/HR and union representatives and another for
employees). The interview guides focused on factors that previous research has pointed
to as essential for ‘push’ and ‘stay’ and for senior policy and practice. In the rst round,
the interview guide for management and HR representatives as well as union representa-
tives comprised questions about (1) the company’s need for, and view of, senior work-
force and changes over time, for example, ‘Are there special reasons for wanting senior
employees employed and/or retained in the company?’ (2) the content, development
process, and practical use of the senior policy, for example, ‘Is there a written seniority
policy in the company? If so, how did it come about? How has it been developed? What
role did the Health & Safety committee play in the process?’ and (3) The possible inter-
play between the senior policy in the company, welfare-state schemes, and trade unions,
for example, ‘Has the [national] late retirement scheme had any inuence on the com-
pany’s senior policy?’ In the second round, this interview guide was supplemented with
more questions on implementation and maintenance of the senior policy, for example,
‘Are the elements mentioned a right for the employees or an option, and is the allocation
made according to needs assessment and measurement, or according to xed criteria?
How is experience collected about senior agreements concluded? And how is this experi-
ence incorporated into new policies and schemes?’. Furthermore, there were questions
about the unanticipated effects, for example, ’How are the senior schemes perceived by
employees who are not covered by them? Do they see it as a good thing? Or does it give
rise to envy/feelings of injustice?’
The guide used for interviews with the senior employees included questions on
expectations of retirement, for example, ’What will determine when you want to retire?
What are your perceptions of positive/negative consequences of retirement?’ and further
questions (if not already answered) on the importance of health, economy, family and
work factors for expectations regarding retirement. Furthermore, we asked employees
what it would take to keep them working for more years. In the second round, this guide

8 Workplace Social Capital in the Development Karen Albertsen et al.
was supplemented with more questions about the actual job-situation, for example, ‘Do
you have a job for which you need further training/competence development in order
to keep up with developments in your work tasks? And do you have an opportunity to
participate in further training?’
Interviews were recorded and subsequently written as meaningful minutes. The
analysis of the interview material from the rst round was based on an inductive cod-
ing process consisting of three steps (Gioia et al. 2006). In the rst step, two research-
ers conducted a manual coding process across interviews, in which statements were
grouped according to their relevance to the ‘push’, ‘stay’, ‘pull’, ‘jump’, and ‘stuck’ cat-
egories. This part was implemented as separate coding processes for each stakeholder
group (managers/HR, union representatives, and employees). The second step focused
on deriving commonalities across actor perspectives from a thematic content analysis.
This resulted in 31 themes with signicance for push decisions and 30 for stay. In the
last step, the different themes were narrowed down to a number of overarching themes
that were divided according to whether they related to an individual, social-relational,
or organizational dimension of early or late retirement (Jensen et al. 2020). For this
article, the organizational dimensions derived from the rst round were analyzed in
the perspective of social capital and further supplemented with case-examples from the
second round. We used the model developed by Hilsen and Mitsundstad (Figure 1) as a
framework for the categorization of options for seniors.
Interplay between workplace social capital and senior policy
In the following, we will rst present examples on how trust in professional relation-
ships played an important role for the perception and acceptance of senior initiatives.
Second, we will describe how different allocation criteria impacted procedural and dis-
tributional justice. And third, we will explain how the perception of interpersonal justice
could be supported or counteracted by the implementation process.
Trust as a precondition for a successful senior policy
At most companies, managers as well as employees were aware that trust in the rela-
tionships was crucial for the success of senior agreements. One of the employees from
a company working with symbols (second round) explained: ‘It’s very important with
respect in the workplace. If there is not trust and freedom, then I would like to be able to
pull up a piece of paper and say: “this will be without me”’. The manager from another
workplace working with humans also highlighted the importance of trust and psycho-
logical safety in this way: ‘Emphasis on meeting each other where you need to be met,
and honesty that it’s legitimate to fail’. At this, and at some of the other workplaces,
there was usually a longer process with dialogue before a senior stopped, in which the
senior made the management aware of his considerations.
Trust could be compromised if employees experienced a lack of consistency
between the intentions formulated in the senior policy and those signaled at the local
level of the organization. Some employees were aware that their companies offered
some form of senior scheme and initiative, but were unsure of what it entailed in

Nordic journal of working life studies 9
practice, and whether the intentions of the senior policy were also unfolded in the
implementation.
One case company (from the rst round) was facing a downsizing, and some senior
employees expressed doubt as to whether the senior policy was developed as an instru-
ment to promote a socially responsible end to the employment rather than retaining
senior employees. This kind of strategic mindset was found in companies of different
sizes. Employees felt uncertain about senior policies and initiatives if signals from the
middle management at the local level were not clearly in line with the policies formulated
at higher levels in the organization. This situation quickly led to different interpretations
of the management signals related to using senior initiatives and schemes in practice.
For example, offers of reduced time could be interpreted as a signal that the company
lacked work, rather than a desire to adapt requirements and employee resources to each
other. The intentions were to a large degree interpreted and considered in relation to the
general level of trust in the relationships between the management and employees. Thus,
dis-trust toward management intentions with a senior policy could arise, particularly
when the level of trust was low from the beginning.
Further, the term ‘senior’ was debated. Some employees perceived it as a sign of
passive contribution, a negative label that reected how employees were no longer con-
sidered an active player in the eld, but rather as a spectator on the bench. An employee
working with symbols said: ‘I have not signed up for that senior club. I don’t want to be
identied with someone who has retired …… you feel really reduced in worth when you
transfer to that senior class’.
Also, managers had reections about the use of the ‘senior’ term, and considered
whether the term could be replaced:
There is a need for a general rethinking of the senior concept because it activates thoughts and
feelings about ending – for example, fear of illness. There is a lack of psychological and men-
tal preparation of the seniors instead of ‘what are you planning and when will it be?’ There
is too little focus on the difcult feelings. [Manager, work with production, second round.]
Knowledge and responsiveness toward the employees’ needs were characteristic for the
relationships between managers and employees at many of the workplaces. And trust
and responsibility had to be mutual:
There are many opportunities to be heard and enter into individual agreements. It means
something that you have been here for a long time. If you give a lot to the department,
then the management is also willing to go to great lengths. They value anyone who wants
to make an effort. [H&S representative, work with production, second round.]
And precisely the topic of criteria for allocating resources and qualifying for senior
initiatives and schemes appeared to be highly important for the perception of justice.
The impact of allocation criteria on procedural and
distributional justice
Should senior initiatives and schemes be considered universal rights that can be stan-
dardized and applied to all employees in the company, or should they be considered as

10 Workplace Social Capital in the Development Karen Albertsen et al.
opportunities that could be granted to employees with special needs, in special situations
and maybe with bespoke customizations? Or something in between?
We saw examples of senior initiatives that could be attributed to any of the cells
in the matrix (Figure 1). However, most examples t into the needs-dependent criteria
and tailor-made schemes (cell 2). But universal criteria and standardized schemes were
common as well (cell 3). Fewer could be characterized as universal and tailor-made (cell
1) or as needs-dependent and standardized (cell 4). In the following, we will give some
examples of each of the different kinds of schemes and allocation criteria and discuss
how they may inuence justice at the workplace.
Needs-dependent and tailor-made schemes
We saw many examples of middle managers who had an obligation to contact employ-
ees who were not thriving. They could be suffering from fatigue or have a high level of
sick leave, and the managers were tasked with investigating whether work adjustments
of one kind or another were needed. Work adjustments related to the adaption of work-
ing hours and tasks to the needs and wishes of the employees. This approach to senior
policy meant that the opportunities and benets were dependent on the needs of the
employees and were tailor-made to the individual.
Importantly, we found a certain degree of arbitrariness in relation to whether mid-
dle managers were aware of employees who were not thriving. Therefore, the needs-
dependent and tailor-made approach had some costs in the sense that it could contribute
to feelings of injustice and arbitrariness.
It can be difcult to accommodate everyone’s wishes, sometimes we have to follow a rst-
come, rst-served principle. The price of individual treatment is the risk of splitting and the
feeling of being disadvantaged. And that is what we experience every day, but rather that,
than having a completely rigid process. [Health & Safety representative, human work,
rst round.]
However, the needs-dependent and tailor-made approach also provided exibility for
the management. The management could choose primarily to offer benets to employees
who have done well, are loyal, or have knowledge, skills or experience that are impor-
tant to the company. A manager, working within production, second round explained:
The individual management assessment of who is awarded a senior scheme may very
well create a feeling of injustice among the employees. There are, of course, examples of
employees who have not been given a scheme, even though they have wanted it, but for
the company it’s absolutely vital to keep those we want to retain.
At the same workplace, a union representative said:
We have called for a clearer personnel policy to create security for the employees as well as
knowledge about the possible schemes available as a senior. Scenarios for different senior
situations could, for example, be drawn up in the personnel policy. [Work with produc-
tion, second round.]

Nordic journal of working life studies 11
The success of these needs-dependent and tailor-made schemes was to a high degree
dependent on the general level of trust in the relationship between managers and
employees, as they often opened for speculation concerning fairness.
Universal criteria and standardized schemes
At the other end of the spectrum, we met workplaces that had decided to let the senior
policy be universally applicable to everyone over a certain age. This had clear advan-
tages in terms of legitimacy, transparency, and experience of fairness. In one of these
workplaces, they had explicitly stated in the policy:
It’s necessary to ensure that a senior is also a senior in a legal context, and that the topic
senior schemes can be discussed without simultaneously sending a signal that the employee is
no longer adequate. This is ensured by making the subject a general matter which applies to
everyone. [Citation from the senior policy from a company within production, rst round.]
At this workplace, all employees above the age of 58 were offered an annual senior confer-
ence and an annual senior interview (a conversation about needs and wishes associated with
being a senior employee). In addition, there were offers of senior positions, participation in
a senior club, health checks and exercise. In practice, about half of the employees above the
age of 58 participated in the annual conferences and slightly fewer accepted offers of senior
interviews. They had decided the senior policy locally at the workplace level.
At another workplace with high physical demands, they had a huge emphasize on
prevention of bodily wear and tear. The workplace offered massage and physical train-
ing within workhours, for all employees, regardless of age. The perception from the
management was that:
The senior policy is just a small piece in prevention and retention. It’s far too late to start
after the employees have become seniors. Attrition must be prevented throughout life, and
the attractive workplace must retain employees of all ages. [Manager, work with produc-
tion, second round.]
The universal and standardized schemes could, however, also challenge workplaces that
were so large that the practice could vary greatly from department to department, or at
workplaces that were down-sizing, or when the benets were part of a general agree-
ment that was not compatible with the terms and practices of the individual company.
We saw an example of this in a workplace with a large proportion of senior employ-
ees. Through a main collective senior agreement, the seniors were entitled to hold 4–6
days off per year, and covering these days caused problems for the management. A
middle manager said:
I think it’s great that we don’t have so many older employees anymore. I am not saying this
negatively, but last year – January 1st – I had 132 senior days to cover. ……. you must put
in a lot of hours and days – in addition to everything else. As such, it’s not a cumbersome
scheme, but you do have to take employees out of operations for many days. [Work with
humans, rst round.]

12 Workplace Social Capital in the Development Karen Albertsen et al.
This meant that the company had to hire hourly wage earners instead. The middle man-
ager had nothing against senior employees as such, but she experienced it as a relief that
the number of senior employees had decreased, and accordingly the administration of
the many senior days.
Also, the distributive justice was challenged at this workplace:
One should not let one age-group pay for another – earlier on, the ‘middle group’ had to
cover for the younger ones to have a sick child and the older ones to have senior day off.
[Union representative, work with humans, rst round.]
The redistribution of workload meant that the middle group had to take on a greater
workload (e.g., take more night shifts) to enable the retention of colleagues. This could
give rise to friction, dissatisfaction, or experience of injustice, particularly because the
other employees did not always agree that the groups entitled to the special rights also
had the greatest needs.
Universal criteria and tailor-made schemes
We saw a few examples of senior schemes that could be categorized as universal and
tailor-made (in cell 1, Figure 1). A large workplace working within production had for
several years worked with benet packages that were offered to all employees above
65years, for example, days off, adjustment of working time and tasks, and half-time
work on full pay half a year before retirement. But the needs differed, and there were
differences in how the specic benets were designed in practice. The HR manager
explained:
Everyone has physically hard work, they are ‘shop people’, and the arrangements are
adapted to them. Having an extra day off or leaving early can provide variety. Some get
different tasks when they go on part-time work – they adjust it. Some want to continue
until they can’t do it anymore and don’t want to go on a benet scheme. It’s individual
what people want and can do. [Work with production, second round.]
Both representatives and employees expressed high satisfaction with the workplace
and the senior schemes. They stressed the importance of respect between colleagues
and trust and responsiveness in the relationship between management and employees.
Furthermore, they stressed the importance of special consideration not only for seniors,
but also for others with special needs, for example, employees with small children.
Needs-dependent criteria and standardized schemes
We saw at one of the companies an example of needs-dependent and standardized
schemes (Figure 1, cell 4) in the form of a return-to-work program after sick leave (for
all employees). The employees expressed great satisfaction with this program, offer-
ing good information and gradual escalation in the return-to-work process. A middle
manager reected: ‘The workplace does a lot to retain workers on sick leave who might

Nordic journal of working life studies 13
have been laid off elsewhere. But there could be more focus on prevention and hiring
temporary workers when people get sick’ [Working with humans, rst round.]
Another company had a longer tradition for retention of employees, but the offers
of, for example, days off, had been non-formalized and were random. After the COVID-
19 pandemic, they realized that justice was challenged due to different possibilities for
working from home: ‘some were allowed to work from home, while others were not
fully allowed to’ [Employee representative, work with symbols, second round.] This led
to standardization of the rules for working at home and to a written senior policy with
standardized benets that could be given to senior employees in need of them. The HR
manager thinks, however, that a life-phase approach would be more sustainable in the
long run:
We must not only talk about seniors, but a policy for the entire working life. You must
look at it much more exibly if we are all to be able to last many years in working life,
otherwise we will be completely driven down. [HR-Manager, work with symbols, second
round.]
At this company, they were also aware that there was a difcult balance between ex-
ibility and not discriminating between employees, and that this balance became more
difcult the bigger the company grew.
This type of scheme may support the experience of procedural and distributional
justice in the way that employees experience a sense of security that everyone who has
the same needs is seen and treated in the same way by the company. Furthermore, this
approach may correspond better with a life-phase policy, supporting all employees in
need of special offers.
However, the balance between consideration for the individual employee and con-
sideration for colleagues’ work situation can also be challenged, even when the ben-
ets are needs-dependent and either tailor-made or standardized. Particularly, if many
employees experience that it is difcult to complete all their work tasks and that the
work is stressful, it may be harder to gain acceptance that there are colleagues who must
be given special consideration.
Interactional justice: Involvement of relevant parties in
implementation and maintenance
Senior policies can be adopted and maintained with more or less involvement of the par-
ties to which they relate. The involvement of stakeholders in decisions is an important
aspect of supporting the experience of justice (e.g., Kim & Mauborgne 2003), and as
the implementation of a senior policy concerns many parties, it is important how and in
which forums co-operation on the design and maintenance of senior policy takes place.
In most of the case companies, middle or line managers with personnel responsibili-
ties played an important role in the implementation, and it was often a middle manager
or a line manager who took the senior interviews. One of the advantages of letting the
line manager be responsible for implementation in practice was that he or she usually
had insight into the daily work and had a good overview of opportunities for work
adjustments, considering the production. However, in some cases, the line manager did

14 Workplace Social Capital in the Development Karen Albertsen et al.
not receive sufcient support to handle the task. We saw examples of a gap between
the intentions of the overall policy and the capacity, opportunities, or interest of middle
managers in living up to the intentions in practice. It could be that the local manager
had only a limited overview of the possibilities for changing or adapting work tasks,
or it could be that, in practice, it was difcult to make the operation cohesive if special
consideration had to be given to senior employees. A line manager working within pro-
duction said:
It should be aligned with the production. We can’t totally remove the employee from pro-
duction. For each senior employee, we must assess how much they need to reduce time,
and if it can t in with our production. If it can, then I don’t see it as a problem [….] There
can also be employees, where it’s not possible. [rst round.]
On the other hand, the middle or line manager may be less committed to a senior policy
that is created centrally in the company. This applies, in particular, if the manager has
not been involved in the development of the senior policy, and if concerns related to the
operation have not been heard and taken seriously. If this has been the case, the line
manager may, as suggested by Nielsen (2013), be less willing to show the exibility, for
example, required to redistribute the work or to accept part-time work.
One of the case-companies working with symbols had a procedure for the involve-
ment of the right parties in the specic senior agreements. The manager described the
principles:
In special agreements, HR is involved, and HR discuss with the head of department on
how to nd a good solution. In this way, HR helps to lay down a line so that all employ-
ees are treated equally. If a senior employee’s wish is to be refused, the top manager is
involved. [Second round]
A union representative from another company was aware that it was not enough to
establish a senior policy, it was necessary continuously to pay attention to how it worked
in practice so that it does not become outdated:
I don’t think that the employee policies work optimally in practice. It’s not enough with a
policy. You also have to talk about it, and this is not happening at the moment. The man-
agement could do more to inform the unions and H&S representatives about it, ensure
that the policies were implemented more thoroughly, or ensure that the policies were dis-
cussed and debated at a staff meeting. [Work with humans, rst round.]
A union representative from another workplace had the opposite experience about the
use of the senior policy: ‘We are talking about it. It is in our interests, it is not just a piece
of paper, it will be used’ [First round]. At this company, the senior policy seemed to be
very much ‘alive’.
Thus, the involvement of middle and line managers in the process seems to be cru-
cial, not only as the executers of the senior policy, but also to secure commitment and to
adjust the policy toward what is realistic and possible in the specic context. Likewise,
the involvement of employee representatives may improve the legitimacy and contribute
to the evaluation of how the policy is lived and executed in practice.

Nordic journal of working life studies 15
Discussion
The results from this study suggested that trust in the relationships between management
and employees may be a pre-requisite for a successful senior policy. Moreover,the award
criteria for the senior benets seemed to be highly important in relation to thepercep-
tion of procedural, distributional, and interpersonal justice in the company. The per-
ception of balance between individual needs and shared goals for the company were
assessed to be important for the employees’ approval of the individual considerations
taken. Involvement of the right parties in the development and implementation seemed
to inuence commitment, particularly among the middle and line management, and to
keep the senior policy alive and in tune with the organization.
Taken together, the results support the assumption that the process of preparing,
implementing, and maintaining a senior policy at workplace level will interplay with
the social capital in the company. Furthermore, the results indicate that the success of
the senior policy will depend on the extent to which it is supported by, and is able to
contribute to, the social capital at the workplace.
Trust and justice in the interface between needs-dependent and
universal benets
The results regarding award criteria suggested that fairness and trust may come into
play, regardless of the nature of the award principles. However, the needs-dependent and
tailor-made initiatives seem to be especially likely to rise questions of arbitrariness and
unpredictability. And thereby this kind of award criteria may challenge the experience
of procedural and distributional justice among the employees.
Midtsundstad and Bogen (2014) found in a case study from Norway that manag-
ers often recommended senior measures based on ‘individual needs assessment, not as a
universal good, distributed to all above a certain age’ (p. 148). However, at the same time,
the managers realized that ‘distribution of measures according to evaluation of individual
needs could cause an unfavorable work climate’ (Midtsundstad & Bogen 2014, p. 148).
It may be argued that the tailor-made and needs-dependent initiatives require a high
degree of generalized trust or high social capital at the workplace (Leana & van Buren
1999), if they are not to challenge the perceptions of distributional justice.
In contrast, standardized offers and universal allocation criteria are supposed to
contribute to a high degree of both procedural and distributional justice. However,
studies have questioned the effectiveness of reducing early retirement (Hermansen &
Midtsundstad 2018) and meeting the age-related needs of individual employees (Jonsson
et al. 2020).
Results from the present study contribute to these previous results by showing that
a serious dilemma can arise when in practice there are limited resources to provide uni-
versal measures to everybody. Consequently, the management (incl. middle managers),
may try to reduce the problems of limited resources by reducing the proportion of senior
employees – contrary to the intentions of the senior scheme. The universal measures
may, furthermore, contribute to feelings of injustice, when other employees experience
increased work pressure due to the senior schemes or think that the schemes are not
given to the employees most in need of them.

16 Workplace Social Capital in the Development Karen Albertsen et al.
Procedural justice with clear award criteria and standardized benets
Needs-dependent criteria and tailor-made schemes may not necessarily be perceived as
unreasonable and unjust by employees. We saw examples that both universal criteria and
tailor-made schemes as well as needs-dependent criteria and standardized schemes worked
well. Visibility and transparency in allocation criteria and principles for the process were
important to reduce perceptions of arbitrariness and injustice in the employee group.
Thus, the experience of justice can be achieved, even if not everyone is treated in the
same way. If it is clear to the employees why and in which situations specic benets are
offered (Hilsen & Midtsundstad 2014). Justice can thus be retained if employees trust
that the schemes will also benet themselves if they need them at some point.
However, this approach may also pose challenges. From the company’s point of
view, it may be difcult to determine whether the need is present or whether the situ-
ation is the ‘same’. In addition, it can be difcult for the company to promise to meet
the similar needs of all employees in the future. The nancial possibilities may change.
Management must also be willing to – in practice – to refrain from using its right to
differentiate benets according to who they want to retain and who they can do with-
out. This may be challenging due to prevalent perceptions among leaders of ambivalence
toward older workers as a group (Frøyland & Terjesen 2020).
Seen from the perspective taken in this paper, procedural clarity and transparency
of criteria and principles for allocation of senior measures seems to be crucial for the
potential effect on justice and in turn social capital of the workplace, also under circum-
stances where the value of benets has to be reduced due to nancial strain. However,
clear award criteria and procedures should not interfere with the management right
to dismiss employees who are not – or who are no longer- valuable for the company –
regardless of age. On the other hand, high age should not be used as an excuse for not
taking responsible management decisions by waiting for employees to retire.
Commitment toward the senior policy at all organizational levels
Finally, successful implementation of the senior policy seems to be more likely if there is
commitment at all levels, not only by top management, but equally by middle managers
and employees. Accordingly, it may be crucial that organizational structures and com-
munication channels support the collaboration and ensure knowledge sharing andcom-
mon direction between the individual departments and between all levels in the company
(Gittell 2012). Furthermore, it is crucial to consider how middle managers are supported
in their role with the implementation of senior policies. In a study of managers in the
public sector, Furunes et al. (2011) found that the decision latitude among managers
regarding age management relied on access to adequate human and nancial resources
as well as appropriate attitudes among the managers. They also found that ‘sufcient
decision latitude was most likely to be found among managers in an administrative posi-
tion, with few subordinates and full responsibility for age management’ (Furunes et al.
2011,p. 1243). In line with this, Jonsson et al. (2022) described how managers within
the eld of healthcare found themselves in a very difcult situation due to insufcient
supply of nurses and auxiliaries. On the one hand, this makes it attractive to retain
senior workers at the workplace, but on the other hand it increases the demands on both

Nordic journal of working life studies 17
employees and employers and makes it difcult to offer reduced working hours to senior
workers, for example.
Thus, sufcient resources for middle and line managers, as well as organizational
support are required to break this vicious circle. One possibility could be, as presented
in one of the case examples, to let the specic senior schemes depend on a collaboration
between the line manager, a central manager, and an HR-person (who usually has to
cover all reductions in working hours).
Strength and limitations of the study
The present study is a multiple case study based on qualitative data material from
18workplaces. It is therefore not possible to draw causal links in any statistical sense.
The material covers data from a broad range of workplaces with different primary tasks,
from different sectors and geographic locations, and from the private as well as the pub-
lic sector. This variation makes it possible to compare similarities and differences and
based on this assess the relevance of the ndings.
The companies were selected as best-cases, and their experiences and attitudes can-
not be expected to reect or represent the general experiences or attitudes about senior
initiatives in Danish workplaces. It is likely that many companies are far less equipped
to deal with senior employees, so theoretically one can imagine that the difculties that
these best-case companies experience with implementing and maintaining senior initia-
tives will also pose difculties for other workplaces with less experience.
A major strength of the present study was the relatively thorough investigation, with
ve to seven interviews at each workplace, and with representatives from three organi-
zational levels. Thus, it may contribute to the credibility of the interpretation that they
are built on utterances and observations that have been conrmed or sometimes contra-
dicted at different levels of the organization. Furthermore, information about the work-
places and their senior initiatives was validated by the workplaces before presentation.
The rst data collection took place between 2017 and 2018, and recruitment for
the second round took place at the end of the COVID-19 pandemic (2021--2022). The
difculties with recruitment of for the second round may reect that the senior theme
was not at the top of the agenda for most companies at that time. It is likely that the
workplaces who participated in the second round represented a select group, probably
with more resources and interest in the topic than the average workplaces. This may
have contributed to more positive experiences with senior policies in this round.
The development of senior policies within a Nordic context
The overall results from the present study supported the assumption that social capital
at workplace level plays an important role in the process of implementing and maintain-
ing a successful senior policy within a Danish context. It seems likely, that this assump-
tion will also hold true in countries outside the Nordics – that the perception of mutual
trust and justice in the collaboration around the core task will interplay with the pos-
sibilities of implementing a senior policy. However, in countries with a less strong tradi-
tion for collective bargaining, it is possible that the perception of what is in fact fair in a

18 Workplace Social Capital in the Development Karen Albertsen et al.
workplace setting may be different. The value attributed to the universal and standard-
ized senior offers may, for example, not necessarily be as high in Anglo-Saxon countries,
where individualized work arrangements are more common. Also, the perception of the
specic behavior and signals supporting trust in professional relationships may differ
with context, as well as the possible roles to be lled by employee representatives.
In a Nordic perspective, Denmark has lagged far behind countries such as Norway
and Sweden with regard to the employment rate of older workers. In 2011, the employ-
ment rate of older workers was 57% in Denmark, 70% in Norway, and 71% in Sweden
(https://data.oecd.org/emp/employment-rate-by-age-group.htm). Most probably, these
differences can be explained by the fact that older workers in Norway and Sweden,
as compared to Danish older workers, have been better qualied, healthier, and, more
importantly, safeguarded by rather extensive employment protection systems (e.g.,
Jensen 2021). However, the introduction of senior policies may have helped Denmark
to catch up with the Norwegian and Swedish experience. Between 2011 and 2021, the
employment rate among older workers in Denmark grew from 57% to 72%, from
70% to 75% in Norway, and from 71% to 77% in Sweden. This indicates that the gap
between the three Nordic countries has diminished.
Conclusion
The results of this qualitative case study suggest that the success of a senior policy
implemented at the workplace level may depend on whether employees experience pro-
cedural, distributional, and interpersonal justice in the policy, and whether they feel trust
in the relationship with the management.
Simultaneously, a senior policy and its implementation may, to a greater or lesser
extent, contribute to the experience of trust and justice in the company, between manage-
ment and employees and mutually among employees. Trust and justice may particularly
benet by transparency in clear connection between intentions, practices, and award crite-
ria around the implementation. Furthermore, commitment from all levels and departments
in the organization can be assumed to contribute to the collaboration around implementa-
tion, and thereby increase the chances of the senior policy being successful.
Acknowledgement
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following nancial support for the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article. This article was supported by a grant from
the Danish foundation TrygFonden.
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Notes
1 https://www.seniorarbejdsliv.dk/forskning/
2
All employees currently aged 60–64 with a job tenure of ve years or more as a percentage
of all employees aged 55–59 5 years previously. Year 2020 refers to 2019.