Active ageing is about recognizing and valuing senior resources in working life. If age and experience makes older workers valuable in working life, we need to understand in which ways this “senior competence” is valuable.
The competence of seniors is valuable for the enterprises for being more than and different from, the theoretical knowledge of e.g. employees straight out of schools and universities. In addition to the theoretical knowledge, seniors have practical knowledge acquired through experience. What this practical and tacit knowledge consists of and how it is being used needs to be explored in a workplace setting as it will vary with types of jobs and work tasks. The empirical data for this exploration is a series of group interviews in a large Norwegian hospital over a period of three years. The question discussed was: “What are the particular senior competences in this workplace and how/when is it being used?”
