Sustaining extended working lives: Perceptions of professional development for older workers in a higher education workplace in England

Extended working lives will affect us all. The lifting of the default retirement age (DRA), rising life expectancy and increasing numbers of older workers, throws the spotlight on the phenomenon of extended working lives; the place of older workers; their engagement and professional learning needs. This thesis explores perceptions of older workers for the professional development and learning in professional roles in a UK higher education institution, together with what development is considered valuable by both staff and management. An interpretative, qualitative, case study methodology, using a multi-strategy approach of survey and semi-structured interviews with staff and management, seeks to probe what is happening in a little-understood situation in a university environment. This critical study builds on a conceptual framework seeing older workers as agentic, able to contribute as well as to receive and recognises older workers look to develop lifelong skills taking them beyond the workplace. The main contribution of the thesis is in generating new perspectives on what older professional staff and management understand about learning and professional development of older workers; the implications and what it is to be engaged in professional development at a higher education organisation as an older worker. It uncovers differences in development needs at both micro and macro organisational level in an adult workplace setting in extended working lives, uncovering new insights into vocabulary, practices and approaches and recommends strategic responses of interest to broader workplaces settings