Research - ARC - Redesigning Work

Redesigning Work for an Ageing Society

BWA has been successful in achieving substantial funding ($514,000) under the ARC Linkages scheme for this project which will be carried out between 2005 and 2008. It is led by Professor Philip Taylor, with other Swinburne Chief Investigators, Professor Louise Rolland and Associate Professor Libby Brooke. Chief Investigators from other universities are Professor Philip Bohle from the University of New South Wales, and Professor Margaret Steinberg of Queensland University of Technology. Industry Partners include Laminex, Qantas, RACV, CRS Australia, WorkCover Corporation SA, Australia Post and the Department of Industrial Relations Queensland. The Australian Catholic University is also being studied as part of a separate project being funded by them independently.

It involves interdisciplinary research, including health and social sciences, occupational health and safety, business and research into healthy and productive ageing.

The project will adapt and develop a framework for managing ageing workforces, the Finnish 'Work Ability' model, for the Australian context. The model will be applied in four organisations, three large-scale national organisations and a smaller one. The project will consider workplace and individual factors predicting work ability and evaluate workplace interventions. The main outcomes will be a better understanding of the correlates of workability and the extent to which it can be increased and sustained, and both practical organisational guidelines and a broad policy framework for increasing the work ability of older workers, in Australia and internationally.

It consists of four phases:

Stage 1 (2006 - ongoing) is examining the workplace risks and vulnerabilities of the ageing workforce using national large-scale data sets. It is building an overview of the occupational health and safety risks and vulnerabilities of ageing workers (according to industry sector, occupation, etc).

Stage 2 (2006-07) includes qualitative interviews in case study organisations which explored the nature of workplace age barriers and quantitative surveys examining correlates of work ability.

In Stage 3 (2007-08) interventions will be designed and piloted with employees. These will include job-redesign and ergonomic improvements and interventions aimed at increasing health, functional capacity and well-being. The purpose of this stage of the research will be to test the extent to which workplace initiatives developed and implemented by the research team affect work ability.

Stage 4 (2008-09) will consist of further ‘post' intervention measurement of work ability and follow up qualitative interviews among managers and workers. The purpose of these interviews will be to obtain information on the longer-term benefits of the above interventions.

LAUNCH: Redesigning Work for an Ageing Society

The project was launched at a gala dinner at the RACV Club in Melbourne in April 2006 and we were very privileged indeed to have the preeminent thinker and architect of the Work Ability Model, Professor Juhani Ilmarinen present to give the key address.

Project partners met at Swinburne to undertake Work Ability training led by Prof Ilmarinen. Key project partners include QANTAS, RACV, Laminex, Australian Catholic University, Australia Post, WorkCover SA and the Commonwealth Rehabilitation Services.

Back Row: Wayne Bishop (Activetics), Kevin Currie (Laminex), Roland Fielding (RACV), Sebastian Bielan (DIR Qld), Prof Philip Taylor (BWA), Prof Louise Roland (BWA), Ryan Orange (WorkCover SA) Prof Juhani Ilmarinen (Finnish Institute of Occupational Health

Front Row: Pat Healy (BWA), Dr Libby Brooke (BWA), Sandra Triulzi (QANTAS), Prof Margaret Steinberg (BWA), Joyce Jiang (BWA), Shelley Cox (BWA), Carrie Pitt (Australia Post)

Current Progress

Initial quantitative fieldwork took place between June and August 2007. Paper and online versions of the questionnaire, which included the Workability Index (WAI), components of the European Working Conditions Survey and Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire, were distributed to case study organisations from early June 2007. Approximately 650 responses from the four case study organisations combined were received.

A visit from our international Chief Investigator, Professor Juhani Ilmarinen of the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health coincided with Chief Investigator and Steering Committee meetings on 20-21 August 2007. Site visits to all case study organisations took place between 23-29 August where initial feedback on survey results was provided.

A relaunch of fieldwork took place in September - October 2007 in order to increase responses to possibly 1,000 as case study organisations were enthusiastic to extend their coverage. The intention was to enable more comprehensive organisational reports and a better combined data set on which to norm the WAI on an Australian population. The achieved data set numbered 1,100 cases.

Initial study findings were presented at conferences in London and Hanoi in October 2007.

Confidential case study reports have been prepared for the case organisations. Consultation is underway with case organisations concerning the intervention phase of the research.

Further data collection in Laminex has taken place in April and May 2008 in an effort to raise the response rate yet further. To date, some 500 additional questionnaires have been received.

Fact Sheets

Fact Sheet 1: The redesigning work for an ageing society project
Fact Sheet 2: What is work ability?
Fact Sheet 3: Business Case for the RW4AS project
Fact Sheet 4: How doe ageing impact on the Australian workforce
Fact Sheet 5: Information Resources