Aging at Work: The Importance of Understanding Accommodation in Social Work Practice

Abstract

Background: With the aging of many Americans, society will face many challenges particularly in the workforce. With an increase of older workers in the U.S. workplace, there comes an increase in disability and chronic health conditions. Therefore, it is essential for employers to develop and deploy proactive retention policies and practices for older workers. Objective: The primary purpose of this study is to investigate whether or not age influences the accommodation process using data from the Job Accommodation Network (JAN). METHODS: Open and closed-ended data are collected using a 20-minute structured telephone interview of JAN customers (N= 1,721) from July 2009 through August 2016. Multivariate logistic regression models were conducted to examine age effect on job accommodation decisions, and additional analysis was used to explore experiences with accommodation process. Results: After adjusting for gender, education, race and length of time with company, age has marginally significant effect on accommodation decisions. Also many respondents stated a need for education, not only on the part of employees but also employers. Conclusions: Given that the workforce is aging and expected to continue to do so, this finding raises more questions and merit further inquiry. Implications for social work practice are discussed.

Knowledge Management and the Sustainable Development of Social Work

“…Social work is considered as particularly important because it closely follows its mission to enhance human wellbeing and help meet the basic needs of all people, with particular attention to the needs and empowerment of people who are vulnerable, oppressed, and living in poverty [40]. Its commitment to support and help people makes social work different from many other professions [41], and authors [40] believe that it has an important role to play in any ageing society. In our research, we opted to focus on Slovenian social work centers that are and have been the basic institutions, which through measures and services for social security, cover the predominant part of social protection on the national level.…”

Career commitment among social workers: The contribution of personal, organizational, and vocational factors

“…As our study is among the first to examine this aspect of career commitment among social workers, it contributes to the field of employee work attitudes in general, and to the social work profession in particular. Its findings could be understood in the international context, as social workers in different national contexts face similar issues, such as working with aging populations (Hartnett et al, 2019), immigration (Herrmann, 2018), and multi-culturalism (Akintayo et al, 2018). Since social workers conform globally to the same basic values, such as social justice and advocating for underprivileged groups (Barsky, 2019), one can generalize these findings from the Israeli context to the international one.…”