Retail Management 12th Edition by Barry Berman ,Joel Evans

Exercise 21

Case 1: Predicting Retail Worker Engagement
In ten of the twelve reports published to date by the U.S. Census Bureau, retailing has been cited as one of the top ten industries that employ workers age 65 and older. As a consequence, one team of researchers decided to study the job engagement of older workers in a retail workplace.
Job engagement is the extent to which an employee places extra effort and goes beyond his/her job responsibilities. Three of the key areas explored by the researchers were the impact of age on job engagement, the factors that predict engagement, and how the factors that affect engagement are influenced by a worker's age. This study had a sufficiently large sample of retail workers who were more than 55 years old to examine how job engagement varies over a worker's life span.
The researchers invited all employees (8,433) in three U.S. regions of a large national Fortune 500 retailer (encompassing 352 of the firm's 6,000 stores) to participate in this study. Of this group, 6,085 employees responded, a 72 percent return rate. Respondents were given time off on their jobs to complete the questionnaire. The respondents were broken into three groups of younger workers-"emerging adults" (ages 18-24), "settling in adults" (25-39), and "adults in their prime working years" (40-54)-and the older workers were classified as "approaching retirement" (ages 55-64) and "retirement eligible" (66 and older).
The research project found that both older worker categories (approaching retirement and retirement eligible) were more engaged than the younger workers. The study's authors concluded that older workers were more highly obligated to their employer and had a stronger work ethic. The findings clearly suggest that older workers are not "checked out" or awaiting the time before retirement.
As also suggested by other research, the emerging adults were the least engaged of all the age groups studied. Other studies have found that emerging adults are less engaged because they are in transition to adult roles and commitments.
The factors that predict engagement generally do not differ by age group. Both older and younger workers who feel that their immediate supervisors are supportive-by being concerned with their well-being and recognizing their achievements-are more likely to be engaged than workers who do not experience these feelings. Workers of all ages who experience job clarity are also more engaged than those who do not. Both older and younger workers who have flexibility in managing their work and personal responsibilities are more engaged than those who feel conflicts among these commitments. Lastly, this study determined that the factors affecting engagement do differ by age. Retirement-eligible workers were more oriented toward authority and more loyal to their employer than younger workers. Higher engagement levels among older workers may be due to the fact that when they have supervisor support and clarity they can more easily align the supervisor's goals with their own goals. Younger workers, on the other hand, may be more interested in getting training for promotions and, thus, become more engaged when they find the work to be interesting and challenging.
Questions
1. What is the managerial significance of the higher level of worker engagement among workers approaching retirement and retirement eligible employees
2. How should a retailer respond to the findings of worker engagement being associated with immediate supervisors who are supportive and that recognize the accomplishment of employees
3. How should a retailer motivate younger workers to become better engaged
4. How should a retailer motivate older workers to become better engaged