BMW is one of Germany’s most famous automotive companies and renown worldwide as a manufacturer of (mostly) luxury cars and motorbikes. It has about 118.000 employees and a revenue of about 111 billion Euros.

The company has been implementing health management measures for a long time. Since 2003, the BMW group has been monitoring demographic changes within and without of their workforce and developed strategies to adapt to upcoming changes.

In its power train plant in Dingolfing (Lower Bavaria), BMW started a project with workers that had to be at an average age of 47, which was 8 years older than the average on the company’s production line. Because the company expected 47 to be the new average age of their production’s workers in 2017, they wanted to develop and test specific working conditions for this ageing workforce. The team chosen for this project consisted of 42 members and instituted 70 changes to the way they worked, for example specially designed ergonomic chairs to facilitate short breaks and facilitate working both sitting and standing or magnifying lenses that reduced eyestrain and minimised sorting errors.

In the first year of the project, the group increased its productivity by 7%, making it as productive as younger teams. Active and passive recreation offers in close proximity to the workplace to support the physical and mental fitness of the workers. Besides these measures of health management and work environment, the project engaged in the fields of qualifications, retirement models and communications, and change management.

Older workers learn best if they are able to bring their experiences into a learning situation. Intergenerational learning has the best potential outcomes.
The biographical age of an employee has little influence on the ability to learn.
It is important to maintain the employees’ willingness to adapt to constant change. This process should start with vocational education.
Careful design of the workplace and the work process can significantly reduce physical strain on the workers.
Employees need to be aware that they have to assume responsibility for themselves.
If you want to implement changes like this, you need to involve all affected groups – workers, managers, worker’s council, and trade unions. You still have to consider some resistance and opposition, which is normal in every change process.

It is important to implement a culture of acceptance for constant changes within the company/organisation. Elder workers often tend to think of themselves as “too old to change” and will therefore resist changes, even if they are aimed at helping them.

goal-oriented, effective, innovative, responsible