Well-being among elder employees in companies experiencing restructuring: The Spanish story

This explorative study aims at finding the effects of organisational restructuring on older workers' well-being. A cross-sectional survey was conducted in companies in the Catalonia region in Spain, which have implemented restructuring prior to the study. The sample consists of 89 respondents, 46 of which are 50 years and older (26 males, 20 females) and 43 are younger than 50 (19 males and 24 females). Shirom-Melamed Burnout Measure (SMBM: Shirom & Melamed, 2006) was used for measuring burnout and scales developed by Arsenault & Dolan (1983) were used for measuring anxiety and depression. It was found that layoffs contributed significantly to the respondents' burnout and depression levels. This effect diminished if the respondent had a managerial position, but was not as much influenced by managerial and co-workers' support as was expected. In this data set social support does not play a substantial mitigating role in the impact of the layoffs, besides some modest contributions at certain levels. Co-workers' general support is highly positively correlated with co-workers' handling of the change and negatively correlated with anxiety only among the younger employees, while negatively related to physical burnout only among elder employees. Elder employees tend to perceive implementation of changes more negatively than their younger counterparts, which may be reflected in their higher anxiety level.