Are the Quality of Organizational Changes Associated with Expected Retirement‑Age Among Senior Employees?

Objective Major organizational changes may be associated with both positive and negative uncertainty in working life. This
study described the prevalence of organizational changes (reorganizations or round of layofs) within diferent job functions
in Denmark and investigated whether quality of the implementation process (measured as “information”, “involvement” and
“consent”) was associated with employees’ expectations regarding retirement age.
Methods A representative sample of older Danish employees≥50 years (n=12,269) replied to a questionnaire survey in
2020. In cross-sectional analyses, we compared employee’s expected retirement age being either not exposed to organizational changes or exposed to implementation processes of high, moderate or low-quality, respectively. Analyses were further
stratifed for job function: ofce work, work with people and work in the feld of production.
Results More than half (56%) of the employees had experienced organizational changes within the past 2 years, and 23% of
those efected reported that the changes had led to considerations of earlier retirement. Organizational changes were most
prevalent within ofce work, and least prevalent within the job function working with people. The analyses showed signifcantly lower expected retirement age when the implementation process had been of moderate (mean reduction of 0.45 years)
or low quality (mean reduction of 0.71 years) compared to high quality implemented changes.
Conclusions Experiences of organizational change processes of moderate or poor quality were associated with expectations
of earlier retirement, while well implemented changes were not. This study underscores the importance of good implementation