Age management in the public sector in Norway: exploring managers' decision latitude

In response to decreasing retirement ages, greater attention is paid to ways of extending older workers' careers without inflicting them with unacceptable strain. Workplace management is supposed to be a key success factor and possible solutions have been coined 'age management'. The purpose of this article is to assess the extent to which managers accept responsibility for age management issues, how do they perceive their decision latitude (options and constraints) with regard to age management and how does this perceived decision latitude vary in relation to a range of organisational and managerial variables. Data used consist of responses from 672 managers in the public sector. Decision latitude was defined by employees' support, option to reorganise work, sufficient human resources, sufficient budget resources and opportunities to unite age management with efficiency demands. The results showed that management attitudes were the most important predictors, explaining 22.4% of the variance for the decision latitude. Changing managers' attitudes and providing access to human and financial resources seem to be the most important criteria for influencing on managers' perceived decision latitude and contributing to retention of older employees.