Isabelle Tabti (Salmon)

Composition of the Jury

Abstract

Demographic aging has led the governments of the countries concerned to extend working lives. The concept of age management was developed for this purpose. However, our literature review shows that its framework suffers from significant flaws, such as the exclusive reliance on chronological age, the focus on economic aspects, and, above all, the lack of reference to occupational health. As a major obstacle to extending working lives, occupational health must not only be reintegrated but placed at the center of a new concept. We initially refer to this as “managing employability through health over time” and put it to the test. We are seeking evidence of this in three companies. Their concrete, day-to-day human resource management practices are carefully analyzed in light of the contexts that shape them and the actors who drive them. To do so, we draw on the analytical framework of Pichault and Nizet, as well as Max Weber’s comprehensive sociology, which complements the political approach by providing an understanding of rationalization processes. On a theoretical level, we propose to enrich the approach of Pichault and Nizet to develop a tool specifically adapted to analyzing how health is incorporated into HRM practices. From a managerial perspective, as the analyses unfold, it becomes clear that managers employing workers in physically demanding jobs must address a fundamental question: what can or should their professional longevity be? We identify two main types of responses, leading to two types of human resource management frameworks that we ultimately term GEPaST (management of employability and career paths through occupational health). Either the manager believes that the employee should be able to remain in the physically demanding job for their entire career and, therefore, incorporates occupational health and safety into each of their so-called “traditional” HRM practices, in addition to developing a dedicated management system. Or the manager believes that this job can only be performed for a limited time. Without neglecting the best practices mentioned above, they then take steps to implement flexicurity at the company level—or even on a broader scale.

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