CL&W Alumni Fellow Laura Markos, Ph.D. (HOD '00), authored the organizational development chapter, entitled "Building an Age-Friendly Workplace" (2005) in Thriving on an Aging Workforce: Strategies for Organizational and Systemic Change (Beatty & Visser, 2005).

The challenge [in achieving an age-friendly workplace] is engaging individuality across a diverse workforce, which for most organizations means reappraising their organizational cultures. The process involves deconstructing, evaluating, realigning, and rebuilding to consistently reinforce the organization's values in daily practice. . . . [Such c]hange requires an open, egalitarian, non-hierarchical learning environment. Each member is ideally mentor and protégé, and each has the freedom and responsibility to address discrepancies between values and practice. When attitudes, values, structure, and practices are aligned, self-reinforcing culture results. Each individual is valued, and all build upon shared values to achieve the organization's mission. The reward of such cultures is radically improved organizational performance and individual motivational fulfillment. These business advantages occur in cultures in which all workers can flourish across age, physical abilities, tenure, and a wide range of individual differences. (Markos, 2005, p. 120)

Markos, L. (2005). Building an age-friendly workplace." In P. T. Beatty & R. M. S. Visser (Eds.). Thriving on an aging workforce: Strategies for organizational and systemic change (pp. 112-120). Melbourne, FL: Krieger.