- Project number: F 2533
- Institution: Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (BAuA) / Leuphana Universität Lüneburg
- Status: Ongoing Project
- Planned end: 2026-11-21
Description:
Against the background of the demographic change, it is important for companies to design work and deal with their employees in ways that ensure individuals can stay in their jobs, and remain healthy and motivated for as long as possible. The Later Life Workplace Index (LLWI), a nine-dimensional diagnostic tool, has been developed with this aim in view. It offers companies a way of appraising their workplace practices and working conditions, thus enabling them to understand how well prepared they are to meet the needs of an ageing workforce.
The LLWI is used to survey the existing situation within an organisation, including its approaches to health management, workplace design, and employees making the transition to retirement. The results can then be drawn on to plan new measures that help maintain individuals' work ability, health and motivation. The Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (Bundesanstalt für Arbeitsschutz und Arbeitsmedizin, BAuA) is conducting a multi-year research project in collaboration with Leuphana University Lüneburg (Leuphana Universität Lüneburg) to further develop the LLWI and evaluate its application by organisations.
The LLWI has already been validated in German. It is one of the project's aims to make the Index available in other languages. This involves recruiting international researchers and supporting them as they carry out the validation process for other language versions of the tool. The aim is to enable practitioners in different countries to implement the LLWI as a screening instrument in future. What is more, the development of a short version of the tool will allow occupational safety and health professionals to make "quick diagnoses".
The first step of the project will be to analyse data from a previously conducted multi-level organisational study on the LLWI that covered over 100 organisations. The tool's practical application in workplaces will be evaluated on this basis. To complement the evaluation, human resources managers from the organisations that participated in the original study will be surveyed to ascertain their opinions of the LLWI. In particular, the focus will be on how useful they believe the Index is and if its application has triggered change processes. Finally, field studies will be conducted to examine the LLWI's real-world application in workplaces in more detail. Among other things, this stage includes the trialling of a workshop concept intended to assist organisations in identifying and prioritising areas for action.