The percentage of people over the age of 65 has been increasing over the last decade, and authors of various studies in this field predict further process of ageing of the population in Europe and around the world. As people's lifespan increases, so do people's work activity duration, and consequently retirement age. Therefore, changes and solutions are needed to enable older employees to work well in the last parts of their careers.
In my master's thesis, I focused on exploring the attitude of principals towards older teachers in Slovenian primary and secondary schools. The results of an English study compared to my research show that older principals, in contrast to the younger ones, have more positive beliefs about older teachers. However, on the sample of Slovenian principals, the results of the statistical tests did not confirm this.
I have found that principals in Slovenia (N=82) have noticed differences in workplace further improve their work with older teachers. The findings direct to changes and improvements behavior between older and younger teachers, but most principals feel competent enough and, as a result, do not need to be further educated in senior management. The results showed that, as in previous studies, Slovenian principals tend to focus on intrinsic motivational factors in motivating older teachers.
The results point to changes that would enable principals to recognize the strengths of older teachers, and consequently use appropriate leadership to leverage the potential of older employees.
|
