Early retirement incentives: Predicting decision satisfaction among men and women
Description
Early retirement incentives are being offered by large corporations for strategic purposes (e.g., reorganizing and downsizing). As a consequence, researchers have compared the retirement decisions of retirees (i.e., acceptors) and non-retirees (i.e., non-acceptors) to determine why employees accept the offers. The main purposes of this study were to examine the individual differences between men and women who accepted the early retirement incentive offer as well as test two conceptual models that differentially predict male and female employees' decision satisfaction. 1788 corporate headquarter employees of a large business enterprise completed a survey designed to determine why they accepted the incentive and how satisfied they were with their decisions. Most analyses were conducted on an age-matched subset (n = 658) of the total. The analyses revealed that the men had longer tenure, higher positions, and made significantly more money than women, both had equivalent performance level ratings and job satisfaction, but women had higher company satisfaction. Both men and women mentioned the incentive payment amount and company dissatisfaction among their top three reasons for accepting the offer. Men also mentioned work-related issues (e.g., more advancement) whereas women mentioned being home with the children as having an impact on their decisions. Preparedness to make a decision at the deadline was the major predictor of decision satisfaction for both men and women. Men's decision satisfaction was also affected by their goal attainment and the importance and generosity of the incentive payment. Women's decision satisfaction was affected by the portion of income they needed after retirement. The impact of various factors occurring during the decision making process on decision satisfaction was also studied. It was found that the greater amount of pressure a person felt to leave the organization, the more often an individual changed his/her mind, and the later he/she submitted the acceptance form, the lower was one's decision satisfaction. Individual differences between on-time and early retirees, as well as the relationship between planning, preparedness and mental health after retirement also investigated