New research chair focuses on end of career challenges

NEOMA is unveiling a new research chair this March dedicated to end‑of‑career management. How do age, fatigue and adaptability affect the productivity of older employees? What measures can help optimise the final years of working life? These are the kinds of questions explored by NEOMA professor Gilbert Cette and his team. The chairholder and economist tells us more below.

NEOMA is launching this new chair, “Business Dynamics, Employment and Human Resources.” What are its goals?

The primary aim of the chair is to help develop NEOMA’s research activities by opening new lines of inquiry centring mainly on age‑related issues. The first priority will be to distinguish the effects of age from the horizon effect. Are employees less productive at the end of their careers for physical or psychological reasons (the age effect)? Or is it because employees and companies invest less in training and skills development for older workers (the horizon effect)? If our econometric analyses show a strong horizon effect, this would indicate that action is needed to sustain the employability of senior workers. This research would then be valuable for both private companies and public authorities.

That’s the first line of research. There is a second one, which examines the take-up of new technologies in companies. How is this linked to age?

This second line aims to characterise the obstacles to the diffusion of AI, including possible age‑related factors. The challenge here is to determine to what degree training programmes targeted at senior employees could facilitate the roll-out of artificial intelligence, assuming that AI enhances business performance.

The proportion of older workers in the labour market is set to grow due to demographic trends. Is this why the issue of employment of people over 60 is so important?

Absolutely. France’s gross domestic product per capita is 15%, 20% or even 30% lower than it is in the Nordic and Scandinavian countries, Germany or the Netherlands. And one of the main factors for this is the low employment rate among low‑skilled workers, young people and especially seniors — people over 55, in other words. Raising their employment rate is essential if we’re going to finance our goals in healthcare, education, defence, pensions and so forth. All of this means it’s crucial to understand the barriers to employing older people.

How will the research chair work in practice?

There will be two teams of researchers. For the first line of research, the team will consist of myself and Francis Kramarz, a globally recognised expert in econometrics. The second team will include the Italian economist Giuseppe Nicoletti (LUISS University) and Océane Venerey, a young PhD student from the University of Burgundy, who will develop the econometric part of the project. The initial results from the first line of research won’t be available for another 18 to 24 months, as the work will require the use of extensive files of French individual datasets. The first results of the second line will be released from 2026. The authors will be taking part soon in an academic conference in Rome, where they will present these preliminary findings.

As you mentioned earlier, the research must be useful to companies. And companies can also provide their financial support. In concrete terms, how does it benefit them?

The benefits are twofold. The first, of course, is that the results of this research may inspire and influence HR policies for managing senior employees, helping organisations maintain, adapt and transform their human capital. Working alongside our partners, we’ll be able to deepen exchanges and analyses, which will make the research more impactful. The second benefit is reputational: we will obviously acknowledge the financial support received in every use made of the research outcomes.