Job resources and an open occupational time perspective to sustain in healthcare work : Results of the longitudinal healthy healthcare project.

Purpose:Due to the ageing and dejuvenization of the western workforce, employers face a challenge to enhance a sustainable working life to maintain older workers at work (De Lange et al., 2015). As a result, it is important to know what makes workers age successfully at work. According to Zacher, Kooij and Beier (2018; cf. Kooij, 2015; Zacher, 2015) employees are aging successfully at work if they deviate in increasingly positive ways from average developmental trajectories in subjective and objective work outcomes across the working lifespan and maintain a person-job fit across time. They also point to the fact that few studies have examined the influence of individual difference variables like experienced future time perspective (Baltes, Mgridich Sirabian, Kenn, De Lange, 2014) in addition to the effects of job demands and job resources in predicting sustainable work ability across time (measured as vitality, employability and work ability; Park, Kooij, de Lange, Van Veldhoven, 2018; Weigl, Muller, Hornung, Zacher, & Angerer, 2013)). Moreover, Zacher et al. (2018) point to the need for more longitudinal research in this area. In this new 2-wave complete panel study we therefore aim to address these research gaps by examining the influence of future time perspective as well as job demands and job resources in relation to sustainable work ability of healthcare workers. More specifically, we hypothesize that:1. Age is negatively related to indicators of sustainable work ability (e.g., vitality, employability and work ability).2. Job demands (work load, physical demands, emotional demands, mental demands) are negatively related to indicators of sustainable work ability (e.g., vitality, employability and work ability).3. Job resources (autonomy, supervisor support, colleague support) are positively related to indicators of sustainable work ability (e.g., vitality, employability and work ability).4. Future time perspective is positively related to indicators of sustainable work ability (e.g., vitality, employability and work ability).Limitations:We only focused on data of healthcare workers and therefore cannot generalize the results to other professions or sectors.Originality/Value Few studies to date have been able to examine relations between aging, future time perspective, psychosocial work and indicators of sutainable work ability at work across time. As a result, the results of our complete panel including 2 waves can bring important new insights to the question how to sustain ageing workers in the labour market.