- Project number: F 2531
- Institution: Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (BAuA)
- Status: Completed Project
Description:
The organization of working time plays an important role in the safety and health of employees. In recent years, research has increasingly focused on the flexible organization of working time. It has become clear that different groups of employees benefit in different ways. For example, older employees with greater flexibility with regard to their working time enjoy significantly better health. However, questions about the circumstances under which employees in which age group or in which phase of life particularly benefit from which flexibility options, or under which circumstances working time demands such as shift work or long working hours have particularly adverse effects, are still largely unanswered.
This research project therefore aimed to examine the relationships between employees’ working time flexibility, but also requirements with regard to length, location, flexibility of working time, and health, ability to work, motivation (e.g. retirement intention) and behavior (e.g. work activity in retirement). Thereby, the focus was particularly on the group of older employees but also employees’ life phases taking also personal and employment characteristics into account. Amongst others, the study examined which groups of older employees particularly benefit from the opportunities of flexible working hours. The study also examined the disadvantageous effects of high working time demands. In addition to personal and employment characteristics, other job characteristics (demands and resources) were also considered. The methodological approach of the project was to evaluate the research questions using the data from the BAuA Working Time Survey.
In summary, the project findings show that the way working hours are organized plays a role in the estimated ability and motivation of older employees to remain in employment for longer. Among other things, it was confirmed that working time flexibility plays an important role in the context of age. The findings are of interest to both the scientific community and occupational safety and health stakeholders and social partners, as they can help to align working hours and occupational safety and health more specifically to the needs of older employees.