Employment intentions of older retail employees as a function of job characteristics and work attitudes

This investigation was undertaken to understand the role job design characteristics and employee work attitudes (job satisfaction and organizational commitment) play in the employment intentions of older entry-level retail workers. Employment intentions were analyzed in regard to respondent's strength of intention to stay and number of years planned to stay, both beyond the normal retirement age. As well, responses were analyzed in terms of staying with the retail company, retail industry or the work force in general. Bivariate and univariate procedures determined that all employment intention variables (except decisions to stay in the work force) were significantly related to the study's independent variables. The multivariate technique, partitioning of the variance, was used to control for respondent's Age in the determination of employment intentions. While the results revealed significant incremental effects of job design characteristics and organizational commitment on older worker's employment intentions beyond age 65, none of the study's variables, used in either bivariate, univariate or multivariate format exhibited considerable explanatory power when predicting any of the criterion, employment intention variables. The implications are that while job characteristics (namely autonomy) and organizational commitment are associated with stronger decisions to continue working as well as employment longevity beyond age 65, other factors, beyond the present analysis, have some effect on the employment intentions of older retail workers.