Bundle of inclusive HR practices for managing ageing and other generations of employees in organisations: evidence from Thailand Free

Currently, the number of ageing people in developed economies (DEs) and emerging market economies (EMEs), including Thailand, is continuously increasing (Napathorn, 2022a). In particular, Thailand is currently an aged society (Paitoonpong, 2023). An aged society is a country in which populations that are at least 60 years of age account for more than 20% of the total population or populations of at least 65 years of age account for more than 14% of the total population (World Health Organisation, 2020). Typically, the process of transitioning from an ageing society to an aged society takes 18–115 years; however, in the case of Thailand, it took place within 20 years because the population of ageing employees, especially those who are at least 65 years of age, has increased rapidly in the last 50 years, from 3.5% of the total population in 1960 to 15% of the total population in 2021 (World Bank, 2022). Importantly, by 2035, Thailand will be the first EME to become a superaged society (Chittinandana et al., 2017). A superaged society is a country in which populations of at least 65 years of age account for more than 20% of the total population (World Health Organisation, 2020).

However, within an organisation-level context, ageing employees are not the only group of employees (here, ageing employees refer to employees who are at least 50 years of age; Napathorn, 2022b). In particular, there are other generations of employees, especially Generation Y and Generation Z employees, who are still young and play crucial roles in the business operations of organisations. Unavoidably, the situation of an age-/generation-diverse workforce has emerged in organisations. Age/generational diversity within organisations has both advantages and disadvantages (Napathorn, 2017). Therefore, organisations in various countries, including Thailand, need to adopt and implement inclusive human resource (HR) practices to manage different generations of employees to ensure that their employees unleash their fullest potential and are willing to work for them over the long term. [Inclusive HR practices here refer to the HR practices adopted and implemented by organisations to help cross-generational employees contribute their knowledge, skills, and abilities, and work together smoothly towards the success of organisations (Boehm et al., 2021; Fasbender and Gerpott, 2022a; Fasbender and Gerpott, 2022b; Rudolph and Zacher, 2021).]

Prior research has recently examined the adoption and implementation of HR strategies and practices to manage different generations of employees in organisations (e.g., Boehm et al., 2021; Fan et al., 2023; Fasbender and Gerpott, 2022a; Oliveira, 2021; Peng et al., 2024), so-called age-inclusive HR practices. Specifically, scholars in the field of HR management (HRM) examine the bundle of practices that foster cross-generational employees to equally increase their knowledge, skills, and abilities; motivate these employees to work hard; and provide them with opportunities to contribute to organisational goals (according to the ability, motivation and opportunity (AMO) framework) (Boehm et al., 2021). However, ageing employees have characteristics, attitudes, and behaviours that are different from those of young Generation Y and Z employees. Thus, organisations need to design and implement other bundles of HR practices that appropriately create and maintain an inclusive workplace for different generations of employees. In particular, in addition to fulfilling goals according to the AMO framework, this bundle of HR practices should foster cross-generational employees working together smoothly, alleviate the feeling of ageing employees being “stamped as old” (Boehm et al., 2021), and reduce conflicts among these employees (the so-called inclusive HR practices in this paper).

Nevertheless, to the best of the author’s knowledge, few studies have examined inclusive HR practices for managing cross-generational employees within organisations (Boehm et al., 2021). Additionally, there is a lack of research on this topic, which has been conducted in EMEs, including Thailand (Napathorn, 2023). Thailand is currently an aged society. In this context, more than 60% of organisations in Thailand have experienced retention problems with high-potential employees because of generational differences (Talerngsri, 2016). Additionally, survey results have demonstrated that the problem of age discrimination has been ranked first among the top ten diversity, equality, and inclusion (DEI) priorities in the Thai workplace (Wu, 2024). Hence, organisations in this country urgently need to adopt and implement inclusive HR practices to foster synergy among their ageing and other generations of employees to ensure that they can effectively, peacefully, and collectively work towards organisational goals. In fact, DEs and EMEs notably differ from each other in terms of their institutional structures, rules and regulations, levels of economic development, market fluctuations and standards of living (Dkhili, 2018; Sabir et al., 2019; Beamond et al., 2016; Surbhi, 2015). Additionally, countries worldwide differ from one another in terms of their national culture, which influences the adoption and implementation of HR practices in organisations within them (Napathorn, 2018). In this context, it is possible that the HR practices that are appropriate for organisations in DEs may not fit well with those of organisations located in EMEs, including Thailand.

Therefore, this paper aims to explore the following research question:

This paper also aims to provide implications of national institutions and cultures for the adoption and implementation of these inclusive HR practices across organisations.

This paper thus contributes to the literature on HR management in the following ways. First, it focuses on the adoption and implementation of the bundle of inclusive HR practices within organisations from the perspectives of employers and cross-generational employees. In contrast, most of the previous studies on relevant topics have focused primarily on the perspectives of employers. In this case, it is possible that formal organisation policies may differ from the actual HR practices perceived by cross-generational employees (Khilji and Wang, 2006). In particular, this proposed bundle of HR practices fosters an age-diverse workplace climate while simultaneously encouraging these cross-generational employees to work together smoothly. Additionally, this paper highlights the implications of national institutions and cultures in Thailand’s EME for the adoption and implementation of inclusive HR practices that foster synergy among ageing and other generations of employees in organisations. Finally, this paper examines inclusive HR practices in organisations across various industries. The literature on HRM, especially inclusive HR practices, has overlooked several EMEs, including the underresearched country of Thailand, which is currently an aged society and will become a superaged society in the future.

Below, three important bodies of literature are reviewed to develop the conceptual framework used in this paper: generational diversity, HR practices for managing generational diversity within organisations, and the roles of institutional and cultural contexts. Additionally, the institutional and cultural contexts of Thailand are reviewed to provide a better understanding of how these contexts may influence the inclusive HR practices that foster synergy among ageing and other generations of employees within organisations.

Workforce diversity refers to the heterogeneity and differences among employees in organisations in terms of their gender, race, nationality, religion, age, generation, language, lifestyle, educational background, or physical fitness (Chaubey and Kuknor, 2024; Chaudhry et al., 2021; Inegbedion et al., 2020; Kim et al., 2021; Manoharan and Singal, 2017; Mehra and Nickerson, 2019; Seliverstova, 2021). With respect to generational diversity, employees in organisations can typically be classified into four generations:

1. baby boomers (employees born between 1946 and 1964);

2. Generation X (employees born between 1965 and 1982);

3. Generation Y (employees born between 1983 and 1995); and

4. Generation Z (employees born between 1995 and 2010) (Chen et al., 2023).

Generational diversity offers both advantages and disadvantages to organisations. In terms of advantages, generational diversity entails increasingly diverse ideas and opinions, more effective decisions, better problem solving, and improved responses to customers’ needs. With respect to its disadvantages, generational diversity means a greater chance for misunderstandings among employees and between managers and employees in organisations due to their different perspectives, as well as conflicts in terms of their ideas and work procedures (Kim et al., 2021; Seliverstova, 2021).

Notably, the four generations of employees mentioned above have distinct characteristics, attitudes, and behaviours that may affect their work style and performance (for details, please refer to Lissitsa and Laor, 2021; Zemke et al., 2000). Organisations thus need to examine how to effectively manage these several generations of employees with distinct characteristics, attitudes, and behaviours to obtain the maximum benefits from such diverse employees and ensure that every generation of employees works together smoothly.

Within the strategic HRM literature, scholars have examined the so-called HR bundles (Jiang et al., 2012; MacDuffie, 1995; Pahos et al., 2024; Zirar et al., 2021) that should be adopted and implemented within organisations across industries. Here, HR bundles refer to a group of HR practices that perfectly align with one another (horizontal fit) to improve organisations’ performance and help them achieve desired goals (Baird and Meshoulam, 1988; Belte et al., 2023). In particular, organisations that adopt and implement these HR bundles are likely to have better organisational performance, greater profitability, lower turnover rates, higher sales volume, safer and more secure jobs, greater job satisfaction, lower emotional exhaustion among employees, and more engaged employees (Jiang et al., 2012; Kaur and Kaur, 2022; Mansour, 2024). However, the HR practices within these HR bundles are typically not age specific, and they are not often directed at managing ageing and other generations of employees to ensure that they work effectively and smoothly together (Boehm et al., 2021). Rather, such HR practices are intended to allow employees across all age groups to obtain better work performance and thus drive organisations towards their goals (so-called age-neutral HR practices) (Boehm et al., 2021).

In this context, another group of HR scholars has focused primarily on HR strategies and practices specifically designed for managing ageing employees in organisations (Boehm et al., 2021). For example, Armstrong-Stassen (2008), Armstrong-Stassen and Lee (2009), Armstrong-Stassen and Templer (2006), Armstrong‐Stassen and Ursel (2009), Fuertes et al. (2013), Furunes et al. (2011), Principi et al. (2015), and Tonelli et al. (2020) have indicated several examples of HR practices for managing these employees, including flexi-time, training managers and employees to respect and realise the value of ageing employees, and fair performance appraisals. These HR practices have been labelled age-specific or age-awareness HR practices (Boehm et al., 2021). Additionally, Kooij et al. (2014) and Napathorn (2022a) proposed various age-specific or age-awareness HR practices specifically designed for groups of ageing employees. They consist of financial planning facilitation, on-the-job training, workplace safety, annual health check-ups, job redesign, job transfer and early retirement.

In addition to the abovementioned group of HR scholars, other scholars have focused on age-inclusive HR practices (Boehm et al., 2021). Age-inclusive HR strategies and practices here refer to HR strategies and practices that aim to ensure equal opportunities among cross-generational employees within organisations in terms of recruitment and selection, training and development, promotion and managerial support (Böehm et al., 2014; Burmeister et al., 2018). These HR strategies and practices also facilitate knowledge transfer from ageing employees to other generations of employees in organisations (Fasbender and Gerpott, 2022a) and foster development striving among ageing employees, which, in turn, promotes knowledge seeking from younger generations of employees (Fasbender and Gerpott, 2022b). Knowledge transfer among cross-generational employees is likely to retain these cross-generational employees within organisations over time (Burmeister et al., 2020). Importantly, age-inclusive HR practices can enhance cross-generational employees’ ability through the perceptions among these employees that they are treated fairly and non-discriminatorily (Rudolph and Zacher, 2021). However, the bundle of age-inclusive HR practices does not aim to foster cross-generational employees working together smoothly (Boehm et al., 2021).

Nevertheless, research on age-specific HR practices and age-inclusive HR practices has typically been conducted in DEs, such as Germany (Rudolph and Zacher, 2021), The Netherlands (Pak et al., 2021; Van Beurden et al., 2024) and Switzerland (Burmeister et al., 2020). These DEs have institutional contexts and structures that may differ from those of EMEs, including those in Thailand. Such differences may ultimately influence the perspectives of employees towards HR management in organisations. In this context, successfully implemented HR practices in organisations within DEs may not work well in EME organisations (Batt and Banerjee, 2012; Napathorn, 2023). Additionally, most previous research on these topics has focused only on certain individual HR practices used for managing cross-generational employees in organisations, except Kooij et al. (2014) and Napathorn (2023), who have proposed the use of HR bundles to manage the group of ageing employees across various organisations. HR bundles proposed by these two groups of scholars are different from each other in terms of specific HR practices in each HR bundle. In particular, Napathorn (2023) proposed five important HR practices that are specifically appropriate for managing ageing employees in EMEs where the level of household debt and/or personal debt is high, where the increasing number of ageing employees leads to high demand for medical services when the medical services offered by private hospitals are expensive, and where tacit knowledge and experience are important for creating and maintaining organisations’ competitive advantage: (1) facilitating financial planning, (2) safety and health training, (3) annual health check-ups, (4) the appointment of ageing employees as advisors/mentors and (5) knowledge transfer/job enrichment. However, these prior studies do not give special attention to examining the group of HR practices that aim to facilitate the interaction between ageing and other generations of employees in organisations, especially in EMEs (the so-called inclusive HR practices in this paper). In other words, there has been relatively limited research on the specific adoption and implementation of a bundle of inclusive HR practices that foster synergy among ageing employees and other generations of employees across organisations in EMEs.

Importantly, any adoption and implementation of a bundle of inclusive HR practices for managing diverse generations of employees may also need to respond to the institutional and cultural contexts of a given country (Benson et al., 2013; Cooke et al., 2021; Napathorn, 2018; Napathorn, 2023;). Thus, it is possible that the inclusive HR practices appropriate for organisations in DEs may not fit with those appropriate for organisations in EMEs, including Thailand.

Within institutional theory, there are three schools of thought. One important school of thought that is primarily applied in this paper is comparative institutionalism (Aguilera and Grøgaard, 2019; Kostova et al., 2019). Comparative institutional theory (Aguilera and Grøgaard, 2019; Kostova et al., 2019; Hall and Soskice, 2001; Streeck and Thelen, 2005; Whitley, 1999) proposes that national institutions play a key role in shaping and constraining the organisation-level behaviours and HR practices adopted and implemented across these organisations (Batt and Hermans, 2012). A popular framework in comparative institutionalism that examines the role of institutions in each country is the Varieties of Capitalism (VoC) framework (Hall and Soskice, 2001). Hall and Soskice argued that to develop and coordinate core competencies over time, organisations must maintain various relationships within five institutional domains, namely, the skill formation system, the industrial relations system, corporate governance, interfirm relations, and internal firm dynamics. Here, “institutional domains” comprise the set of regulations and rules that actors within an organisation must agree upon and follow (Hall and Soskice, 2001; Napathorn, 2022b). Accordingly, in response to these institutional domains, which tend to differ across economies, organisations in disparate economies need to implement divergent HR practices to manage their employees.

Hall and Soskice further proposed that economies worldwide can be divided into 2 main groups: liberal market economies (LMEs) and coordinated market economies (CMEs). The skill formation system, one of the institutional domains examined in this paper, is distinct. In LMEs, including the USA and UK, the skill formation system offers a formal education that focuses on general skills. Organisations in these economies are therefore reluctant to develop managerial and professional employees internally and to invest in firm-specific training (Napathorn, 2022b). However, in CMEs, including Germany, for example, the skill formation system provides employees with firm- or industry-specific skills through the German vocational education and training (VET) system (Finegold and Wagner, 2002; Napathorn, 2022b). In other words, it relies primarily on the internal development of managerial and professional employees and investment in firm-specific training instead of general training. In this context, the VET system has been very successful in creating a large, skilled workforce (Finegold, 1999; Culpepper, 1999; Napathorn, 2022b).

Nevertheless, one important weakness of the VoC framework is that it ignores the institutional domains of EMEs. In fact, several EMEs, including those in Thailand, have faced skill shortage problems due to specifics in their national skill formation system (Napathorn and Kuruvilla, 2018).

With respect to cultural contexts, culture represents the behaviours, beliefs or values that people typically acquire from learning and absorbing the historical, religious, and literary contexts that have surrounded them since they were young (Schell and Solomon, 1997). Unsurprisingly, the history, religion(s) and literature in each country/economy play crucial roles in developing its respective national culture (Barlett and Ghoshal, 1998). Hofstede, who provided the most influential national cultural framework, classified national culture into six different dimensions: power distance, individualism/collectivism, masculinity/femininity, uncertainty avoidance, short-term orientation/long-term orientation and indulgence/restraint (Daft, 2017; Escandon-Barbosa et al., 2022; Hofstede, 2025; Minkov and Kaasa, 2021, 2022). In this context, these dimensions of national culture tend to play important roles in shaping the inclusive HR practices adopted and implemented by organisations in each country/economy worldwide. However, prior research has not examined how national culture, especially that of EMEs, including those in Thailand, influences inclusive HR practices for managing ageing and other generations of employees within organisations.

Thailand’s skill formation system has several specifics, including skill shortages and skill mismatches. With respect to skill shortages, the national skill formation system cannot produce sufficient technicians and engineers to support new technology-oriented investments in the automotive, electronics, or petrochemical industries (Birch, 2022). Additionally, there has been a shortage of approximately 500,000 skilled and unskilled workers in the tourism and service sectors (Bangkok Post, 2023). Moreover, more than 40% of organisations in Thailand have struggled to find suitable candidates (Wu, 2024), whereas over 50% of those organisations are unable to fill vacancies within three months (Siam Commercial Bank Economic Intelligence Centre, 2015; Napathorn, 2022b). Skill mismatches result from universities and colleges in Thailand being unable to produce sufficient graduates who are industry-ready to work in organisations across industries (Napathorn, 2022b; Suehiro and Yabushita, 2014). In particular, organisations across industries tend to need numerous vocational school technicians to perform jobs such as supervising quality control on an assembly line, but the national skill formation system cannot respond to these needs; instead, it produces numerous university graduates. Thus, many organisations currently employ engineers in jobs that normally require only vocational-school education (Birch, 2022).

According to Hofstede’s (2025) national cultural framework, because Thai people tend to accept imbalances in power and authority among diverse groups of people in society, Thailand ranks high in the dimension of power distance. In this context, employees within organisations are likely to avoid conflict with their employers by not expressing their honest opinions when they contradict those of their employers (Napathorn and Kuruvilla, 2018). Additionally, Thai people are typically very cooperative and not very aggressive (Napathorn, 2022c); therefore, Thailand has been considered high in uncertainty avoidance, moderate in indulgence, and low in individualism, masculinity, and long-term orientation (Hofstede, 2025). Moreover, within Thai society, Buddhism, specifically Theravada Buddhism, plays a crucial role in encouraging Thai people to be unassertive, passive, and unambitious in exercising their rights and addressing their life events and challenges (Napathorn and Kuruvilla, 2018; Siengthai and Vadhanasindhu, 1991). Approximately 95% of Thailand belongs to this religion (Napathorn, 2022c). Thus, the values and attitudes of Thai employees, such as “Mai Pen Rai (never mind),” “Jai Yen Yen (take it easy),” “Kreng Jai (be self-effacing, respectful, humble and extremely considerate)” and “Boon Khun (reciprocity),” originate from these cultural dimensions and religious beliefs (Napathorn, 2022c). In this context, paternalistic employee relations typically found within the Thai workplace are closely related to the national cultural contexts mentioned above (Napathorn, 2022c).

In this paper, the author, therefore, fills the abovementioned research gap by examining the inclusive HR practices that foster synergy among ageing and other generations of employees in organisations located in the EME of Thailand. The author also discusses the implications of national institutions and cultures for the adoption and implementation of these HR practices.

Because Thailand is currently an aged society and will become a superaged society in the future, it is an appropriate research site for exploring how various generations of employees (including ageing employees) collectively work, smoothly and uniformly, towards organisational goals. Additionally, organisations across industries in Thailand tend to face labour shortages because of the nation’s continuously declining birth rates (Wu, 2024). These organisations have thus adopted and implemented various practices to alleviate this problem, including the extension of the retirement age for ageing employees. Unsurprisingly, various generations of employees, including baby boomers, Generations X, Y and Z, have become the drivers of organisational success in meeting goals. Such organisations also need to adopt and implement various HR practices to foster synergy across the generations of their employees over time. However, relatively little research has investigated how organisations located in EMEs, including Thailand, attract, develop, manage different generations of employees, maintain workplace inclusiveness, and reduce the conflicts that may result from gaps among various generations of employees.

To explore the inclusive HR practices that foster synergy among ageing and other generations of employees in organisations, the author has conducted a cross-case analysis of various generations of employees working in seven organisations across several industries. This cross-case analysis examines the similarities and/or differences in these inclusive HR practices for managing several generations of employees. A cross-case analysis also enables so-called logic of replication. In particular, each case study organisation confirms or disconfirms any arguments regarding inclusive HR practices among previous case study organisations.

Specifically, the author uses a qualitative approach to collect comprehensive and holistic data on the inclusive HR practices that have been implemented across the seven case study organisations and in their surrounding contexts (Eisenhardt, 1989; Yin, 2009). The author has attempted to conduct trustworthy case study research and present valid and reliable findings by remaining neutral or detached from all seven case study organisations (Yin, 2009). Additionally, another advantage of a cross-case comparison is that the author has applied multiple methods, including semi-structured interviews, virtual and in-person observations, and the analysis of archival documents, reports and web-based resources, to collect data on each case (Yin, 2009).

The seven case study organisations were selected via purposive sampling (Teddlie and Tashakkori, 2009); these organisations have been widely known as established organisations in Thailand for a very long time and have been extensively recognised as workplaces that employ various generations of employees, including baby boomers and Generations X, Y, and Z. Additionally, some of these organisations have recruited ageing/retired people as employees. Moreover, some of them have participated in a project developed by the Ministry of Labour of Thailand regarding the extension of retirement age and the recruitment of ageing people/retired employees (Matichon Online, 2016). Specifically, the author has also examined secondary data from the National Statistical Office of Thailand to determine which industries have employed various generations of employees at a significant level. The author ultimately reported that organisations across the manufacturing and service industries in Thailand, especially long-established large organisations, tend to employ all four generations of employees mentioned above. In this paper, retired employees refer to employees who have retired from other organisations and been recruited to serve as new employees in the case study organisations; ageing people/employees refer to people/employees who are at least 50 years of age.

This paper is a part of a research project on the management of generational diversity in organisations. The data in this paper were collected between June and August 2022. This research involved 30 semi-structured interviews with top managers, HR managers, and employees across the four focal generations working in the seven case study organisations to identify the inclusive HR practices that foster synergy across generations of employees in organisations. These interviewees included 8 baby boomers, 10 Generation X, 7 Generation Y, and 5 Generation Z employees. Their ages ranged from 23 to 65 years (see Table 1 for the list of all interviewees, classified by generation and demography). Additionally, this study included 6 virtual visits and 1 onsite visit to headquarters, factories, a restaurant/café, a publishing house, and a hospital located in Bangkok and other nearby provinces in Thailand. Moreover, it involves secondary data obtained from newspaper articles, archival documents, reports, and web-based resources, including case study organisations’ websites. Nonparticipant observations occurred during the periods of the interviews and the virtual as well as onsite visits. Specifically, the author primarily observed the characteristics and behaviours expressed by interviewers and other employees who work at each organisation to ensure that their characteristics and behaviours correspond with data given by those interviewers. The author also observed the workplace environment at each virtual and onsite visit to triangulate with the data provided by the interviewers. Overall, the author collected data for these seven case study organisations via different methods to triangulate the data and overcome single-source bias.

Each of the 30 semi-structured interviews lasted between 1 and 3.5 h. All of the interviews were conducted in Thai, individually, and face-to-face. Twenty-five studies were conducted virtually via ZOOM, and the other five were conducted onsite. The interview protocols were generated from a review of prior literature and from the objective of a research project regarding the management of generational diversity in organisations. The author asked the same questions among all seven organisations. The questions for the interviewees, who were employees from different generations, included specific HR practices that their organisations had adopted and implemented to foster synergy among various generations of employees as well as specific HR practices that they expected their organisations to adopt and implement to promote such synergy, characteristics of the corporate culture of each organisation, how organisations train, develop, evaluate performance, manage career paths, and pay those cross-generational employees, how organisations engage cross-generational employees with their jobs and their organisations, and age-specific HR practices that organisations implement to manage employees who are older than 50 years of age. Regarding interviewees who were both employees from different generations and served as top managers or HR managers in their organisation, in addition to the abovementioned questions, the author asked questions about the history and background of their organisations, locations of headquarters and branches, number of branches, number of factories (if any), organisation structure, number of departments, the number of overall employees, the number of overall employees in each generation, the number of employees from different generations in each department, the number of employees who are older than 50 years of age in each department, and the overall business strategies and HR strategies of each organisation. Every interview was digitally recorded, and the author took field notes during the interviews to facilitate translation from Thai to English.

This paper follows the grounded theory approach by applying thematic analysis (via Atlas.ti; Teddlie and Tashakkori, 2009) to identify, examine, and record themes within the data. In particular, the thematic analysis reported here involved three main steps. First, the author classified the raw data obtained from the semi-structured interviews, non-participant observations and analysis of archival documents and web-based resources into empirical themes. To develop the empirical themes, the author used language that was as close to the data as possible. As the empirical themes emerged, the author compared the themes within and across the interview transcripts and field notes to ensure that these themes fit the data well across these transcripts and field notes. On the basis of the empirical themes, the author constructed higher-level conceptual categories related to the bundle of inclusive HR practices to foster synergy among cross-generational employees in organisations (Table 2 shows how the author categorised the raw data into empirical themes and consolidated these themes into higher-level conceptual categories, and Table 3 shows the frequency of each empirical theme.) As the higher-level conceptual categories emerged, the author wrote memos to elaborate the relationships among these categories (Besharov, 2014). Regarding the saturation of the data, the author suggested that 30 semi-structured interviews were sufficient for robust research because no new themes, points, ideas, or insights emerged beyond this number of interviews (Strauss and Corbin, 1990). Moreover, the authors reported that data saturation was reached once 22 interviews with participants from five case study organisations were completed. However, to ensure that the data were truly saturated, the author conducted 8 additional interviews at two additional case study organisations before determining that further data collection was unnecessary.

In summary, in this study, the author primarily conducted interviews with various generations of employees across the seven case study organisations. Additionally, non-participant observations of the characteristics and behaviours of these interviewees during their interviews; virtual as well as onsite visits to each of the seven organisations; the analysis of archival documents, reports, and web-based resources as well as the analysis of the author’s own field notes were used to triangulate the interview transcripts before the author developed an inductive analysis of the inclusive HR practices used to foster synergy among ageing and other generations of employees in organisations.

The author proposes that the inclusive HR practices that foster synergy among ageing and other generations of employees in organisations consist of age-/generation-neutral recruitment and selection policies; equal access to training and development opportunities; coaching; mentoring systems; reverse mentoring systems; job shadowing; the development and maintenance of a corporate culture of openness; age-/generation-neutral career and promotion systems; flexible benefit plans; and encouraging cross-generational employees to participate in employee relations activities. The detailed case studies below provide empirical evidence supporting these propositions.

At SME Bank, several recruitment channels have been used to recruit various generations of employees. Such recruitment channels include web-based channels, job fairs, tech career fairs, LinkedIn, and employee referrals. In fact, job candidates across ages/generations tend to be able to use these channels to apply for jobs (Interview#4). In the cases of Boon Rawd Group, SE-ED, and Doi Kham, in addition to walk-in recruitment and employee referrals, these organisations have used various recruitment channels, including management trainee programmes and executive management trainee programmes, campus recruitment events, web-based channels, social media and LinkedIn (Interviews#7–10; Interviews#11–16; Interviews#23–27).

With respect to their selection tools, the interview questions at SCG need to be changed to reflect the fact that various generations are employed within the organisation. Hardcore, so-called technical-oriented, questions should no longer be used. For example, interviewers need to ask interviewees questions regarding their experience, lessons learned from their work experience, extracurricular activities, and attitudes to help them smoothly coexist and work with their colleagues. All interviewees were asked the same questions (Interview#1). According to a top HR manager at SCG Group:

Additionally, behavioural-based interviews and situation-task-action-result (STAR) interviews have been adopted at SCGs to provide an in-depth understanding of job candidates’ behaviours and how these candidates address problems in various situations. Job candidates across ages/generations need to pass these selection evaluations (Interview#2). One important point at SCG is that the atmosphere of these interviews tends to be more informal than in the past several years (Interview#3). Senior interviewers speak to junior interviewees informally, allowing them to realise that the work environment at SCG is friendly for every generation.

Cross-generational employees at SCG and SME Bank are able to access various training courses depending on their needs and position (Interviews#1–3; Interviews#4–6). For example, newly recruited employees at both organisations must attend an onboard training course (Interviews#1–3; Interviews#4–6). The length of an onboard training course at SCG has increased from only 5 days to approximately one month to ensure that newly recruited employees thoroughly learn organisational policies and practices and have a clear picture of the entire organisation. Several entertainment activities have been added to this training course to attract and maintain this young generation of employees within the organisation (Interview#1). For baby boomers and Generation X employees, SME Bank has attempted to upskill and reskill this group of employees to enable them to adapt to changes in the business world. Additionally, these two generations of employees are trained to prepare for retirement through financial planning courses, health training courses, and vocational training courses (Interviews#4–5). According to a Generation X employee at SME Bank:

At Boon Rawd Group, Samrong General Hospital, and Doi Kham, every generation of employees has also been able to attend various training programmes. Baby boomers tend to prefer training programmes related to preparation for retirement, whereas Generation Y and Z employees seek training courses related to mental health development, self-development, and communication and presentation skill improvements (Interviews#7–10; Interviews#17–22; Interviews#23–27). According to a Generation Z employee at Doi Kham:

A baby boomer employee at Samrong General Hospital mentioned:

Coaching has been used across organisations to foster synergy within a workplace that is full of cross-generational employees. At Boon Rawd Group, coaching helps reduce resistance from different generations of employees. They can typically work together smoothly through coaching. Managers who serve as coaches ask questions of employees to help them find solutions to various problems by themselves (Interviews#7–10). In the case of SME Bank, managers and employees from different generations work closely in real working situations through the process of coaching (Interviews#4–6). According to a generation Y employee at SME Bank:

At SE-Ed., coaching fosters employees’ strengths and minimises their weaknesses. Typically, coaches ask coachees questions according to the goal-reality-options-way forward (GROW) model. First, coaches ask questions to help coachees understand their future goals (G). Then, coaches ask questions to help coachees understand their current problems/situations (R). Afterward, coaches ask questions to help coachees create various options to resolve their problems (O). Finally, coaches ask questions to help coachees choose an appropriate solution and understand what to do next and when to start doing so (W). This model tends to help coachees realise how to reach solutions by themselves (Interviews#13–16). It can also help SE-Ed. mix cross-generational employees to collectively work towards a goal (Interviews#13 and 15; Observation).

In the case of Kasikorn Bank, coaching has also been applied to help cross-generational employees within each department work together smoothly and search for solutions to various problems by themselves. For example, each department at Kasikorn Bank has approximately 30–40 employees, consisting of baby boomers and Generation X, Y, and Z members. Baby boomers or Generation X members in each department typically serve as coaches to Generation Y and Z employees. However, in some cases, Generation Y employees may serve as coaches for baby boomers or Generation X members, especially for information technology or its applications. In the latter case, coaching, to some extent, helps baby boomers or Generation X members adapt themselves to the new workplace environment and the changing business context. However, some baby boomers may have their own way of working, which may be difficult to change by coaching (Interviews#29–30).

[The mentoring system here refers to the pair of a senior (i.e. mentor) and junior (i.e. mentee) colleague in a support-based relationship to guide the mentee through career advancement and psychosocial development (Mullen and Klimaitis, 2021)]. In the SCG group, the organisation pays special attention to the training and development of mentors. Typically, mentors are employees who have more years of service than mentees do. However, these mentors are not overly senior, allowing mentors and mentees to easily oppose each other (Interviews#1–3). According to a generation X employee in the SCG group:

The relationships between mentors and mentees in the SCG group are one-on-one. The organisation has attempted to help illuminate what Generation Y or Z members have in their minds and to help newly recruited employees work smoothly with other senior employees. A generation Y member in the SCG group stated:

Mentoring systems also play an important role in facilitating the smooth work of various generations of employees at Boon Rawd Group. If cross-generational employees regularly talk and consult with each other, resistance from the employees in each generation is minimised. Additionally, performance feedback, especially creative performance feedback, from mentors to mentees (particularly Generation Y or Z mentees), fosters mentees’ happiness at work and motivates them to stay for the long term (Interviews#7–10). According to a baby boomer employee:

However, one important point at SME Bank is that Generation Y and Z mentees often refuse to discuss every topic with their mentors. Therefore, mentors need to be well trained to generate confidence among their mentees, and these mentees should feel that they can speak openly with their mentees, similar to the relations between older brothers/sisters and younger brothers/sisters (Interviews#5–6).

At SE-ED, mentors, especially baby boomers and Generation X employees, teach mentees in work-related problems, including English language skills, finance and budgeting, and book-making. Mentors attempt to supplement their mentees, who are Generation Y and Z members, in areas where the former are considered experts (Interviews#11–16). In the case of Samrong General Hospital, the organisation trains its mentors from generation to generation to ensure that knowledge, experience, and valuable advice are transferred from the older to the younger generations of mentors and that mentors will not disappear from the organisation as older employees retire. In fact, the mentors at this hospital work as a team. Each team of mentors consists of primary and secondary mentors. On the one hand, primary mentors help support their mentees directly; they are typically permanent mentors who have performed these duties for a long time. On the other hand, secondary mentors provide support to mentees only in some areas or when primary mentors cannot perform their duties. In many cases, secondary mentors are mentors with little experience who are in the process of becoming permanent mentors. Generation Y employees can also serve as mentors for Generation Z members (Interviews#17–22). According to a generation Y employee who has served as a mentor:

Generation Y or Generation Z employees can serve as mentors of baby boomers or Generation X employees at SE-ED. Typically, Generation Y or Z employees are technology-savvy. They can thus serve as mentors for baby boomers or Generation X employees, who lack expertise in information technology and computer programmes. Additionally, some Generation Y or Z employees can help baby boomers or Generation X employees better understand the insights and perspectives of younger generations. In other words, reverse mentoring systems help employees from different generations understand one another (Interviews#11–16). According to a baby boomer who serves as both a mentor and a mentee:

Kasikorn Bank has also applied the reverse mentoring system to foster synergy among various generations of employees. Baby boomers are mentored by Generation Y employees, who are information technology/data champions. Baby boomers can speak to their mentors directly regarding work-related problems. In some cases, these mentors must cooperate with experts from information technology clinics to solve work-related problems for baby boomers (Interviews#28–30). According to a generation Y employee who serves as a mentor for baby boomers:

Reverse mentoring systems can be easily and successfully implemented in organisations if older generations of employees cooperate very well with the younger generations of employees, who serve as mentors (Interviews#28–30).

Job shadowing is a tool for developing talented employees and ensuring that several generations of employees at SME Bank work together. Talented employees first act as change agents at SME Bank. Then, top managers serve as change sponsors who closely supervise these talented employees. Talented employees thus learn how top managers deal with problems, develop solutions/ideas during meetings, and manage their time and stress. In particular, talented employees follow and closely observe top managers in their daily roles. These top managers are typically baby boomers or Generation X members, whereas the talented employees are often members of Generations Y or Z (Interviews#4–6; Observation). According to an HR manager at SME Bank:

Samrong General Hospital has implemented a similar job shadowing programme for many years. Newly recruited employees closely follow experienced employees during the first four months of their careers. When experienced employees perform any duties, these newly recruited employees perform the same tasks. There are approximately 30–40 employees in the job shadowing programme at any time. Typically, one newly recruited employee is closely supervised by one experienced employee. Job shadowing is different from a mentoring system in that the former focuses on developing newly recruited employees to be able to perform their role through behavioural observation (Interviews#17–22).

Samrong General Hospital has 45 departments, and there are 2 or 3 experienced employees in each department who closely supervise newly recruited or transferred employees. These experienced employees play a crucial role in helping newly recruited or transferred employees adjust to their new environment (Interviews#17–22; Observation). According to a generation Y employee who has closely supervised Generation Z employees for several years:

I have been working here for 17 years. I have never felt bored when supervising newly recruited employees. I need to shadow them very closely and teach them in work systems and how to gently talk with patients […] I have shadowed numerous inexperienced employees (Interview#21).

Clearly, when different generations of employees supervise each other and work together, they learn from their distinct perspectives, insights, and ideas. This can foster greater understanding among people from one generation of those from other generations (Interviews#17–22).

The SCG group has developed and maintained a corporate culture of openness over time. Managers (who are baby boomers, Generation X members, or even Generation Y members) are trained to listen to younger generations’ opinions. Managers must not just dictate orders or ask these young generations of employees to accept their ideas. In fact, HR managers and professionals must serve as role models for line managers to change their ways of working. Additionally, the greatest role model in the SCG group is the chief executive officer (CEO). Thus, the CEO consistently mentioned that the organisation needs to adapt its corporate culture to openness and challenges. He always visits factories regularly to speak and discuss with employees at every level. (Interviews#1–3; Observation). According to a top HR manager at SCG Group:

As a Generation Z employee noted:

Kasikorn Bank and SME Bank have also attempted to develop a corporate culture of openness within their organisations. Young generations typically dare to speak and ask questions in front of others, whereas older generations of employees do not want to speak or express opinions/ideas in front of others. Managers are thus trained to develop an open atmosphere within their units/departments to ensure that every generation of employees feels relaxed and dares to ask questions and express ideas (Interviews#4–6; Interviews#28–30). These managers, if they are Generation Y members, are trained to serve as role models for young generations of employees regarding how to act among and treat their senior colleagues in the workplace. These Generation Y managers are trained to listen to senior employees’ opinions and to help them realise that their experience is valuable for the survival of the organisation (Interview#28). According to a senior employee at Kasikorn Bank:

At SME Bank, employees are selected as part of the talent pool based on their performance, not their seniority. In other words, age is not a factor used for choosing employees to serve as talented employees. These talented employees typically have better career growth than other, normal, employees do. In many cases, talented employees are members of young generations, including Generations Y and Z (Interview#4). However, previously, the majority of managers at SME Bank were aged 50 years or above. Recently, career and promotion systems have been restructured so that every generation of employees can be promoted to management on the basis of their performance and potential instead of their years of service (Interviews#4–6). Professional employees who are just 35 years old can be promoted to the managerial level when their work performance has been “excellent” during their past several years at the bank (Interview#4). However, for every generation of employees to work collectively smoothly, a corporate culture of openness and challenge needs to be adopted and implemented to ensure that various generations of employees listen to one another’s opinions and accept diverse ideas and perspectives (Interviews#5–6).

In the cases of Boon Rawd Group and Kasikorn Bank, the career paths of their employees follow the learning roadmaps of these employees. In other words, training curricula support the career goals of each employee. To be promoted to a higher position, each employee must attend and complete training and development courses based on their learning roadmap. The performance and potential of each employee are subsequently evaluated regularly to ensure that he or she is ready for a promotion. Of course, every generation of candidates is eligible for promotion to a managerial level (Interviews#7–10; Interviews#28–30). According to a top HR manager at Boon Rawd Group:

At SE-ED, flexible benefit packages are offered to various generations of employees. For example, baby boomers and Generation X members receive more annual medical expense reimbursements, including eye glass expenses, whereas Generation Y and Z members receive more reimbursements for dental expenses. Additionally, every generation of SE-ED employees can purchase books sold at SE-ED bookstores at a discount (40–45% discount rate for books published by SE-ED and 20–25% for those published by other publishers). Moreover, the SE-ED employees who work at the organisation’s headquarters can purchase drinks at a very low price (Interviews#11–16).

Various benefit plans at SME Bank, Boon Rawd Group, and Samrong General Hospital include plans for married employees, plans for single employees, plans for ageing employees, and plans for young employees. The main differences among these plans concern health check-up programmes, medical expense reimbursements, scholarships for employees to continue a master’s degree, and fitness and massage programmes. Thus, health check-up programmes for ageing employees include more check-up items than those offered to young employees do. Additionally, the total annual medical expense reimbursement for ageing employees is higher than that for young employees. Moreover, plans for young employees typically include fitness and massage programmes as well as scholarships for continuing a master’s degree (Interviews#4–6; Interviews#7–10; Interviews#17–22). Moreover, for Samrong General Hospital, every benefit plan also includes free rice and very inexpensive side dishes (15 Baht per dish) (1 US dollar = 34 Baht). If employees want to have a single side dish over rice, they pay only 5 Baht for one type of side dish (Interviews#17–22).

However, in the case of the SCG group, its top HR manager mentioned that flexible benefit plans are difficult to manage in terms of budget. Additionally, he noted that there will ultimately be too many (much more than 10,000) benefit packages if the organisation allows every generation of employees to design their own packages. In this regard, to foster an age-inclusive workplace environment, the SCG group adds various types of benefits to its overall benefit package to attract Generation Y and Z job candidates, including sports facility and fitness and sports equipment access (Interviews#1 and 3). According to a top HR manager at SCG Group:

A Generation Z employee noted the same point:

At Doi Kham, the top managers also noted that it is extremely difficult to manage several benefit plans classified by employee age/generation due to unexpected costs/expenses. Accordingly, the organisation plans to offer only the main types of benefits to cross-generational employees, including medical insurance covering them until they reach 85 years of age, annual medical health check-up programmes, life and accidental insurance, financial planning programmes, smart retirement programmes, and scholarships for employees who want to study further abroad or in Thailand (Interviews#23–27).

The SCG group and SME Bank encouraged cross-generational employees to participate in team building and ice-breaking activities, including corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities, outgoing activities, newcomer welcoming activities, soft-skill training courses, mindset development courses, out-of-town seminars, exclusive dinners, karaoke parties, colour sports activities, and religious activities (Interviews#1–3; Interviews#5–6). These activities help foster positive relationships among generations (Interview#6).

Doi Kham has also urged its employees to participate in various activities that promote pleasant relationships among cross-generational employees. For instance, the CEO of Doi Kham, a baby boomer, has created Buddhist activities and CSR activities for his subordinates. He has also regularly joined these activities to become acquainted with his subordinates both at the headquarters and factory level throughout the country. He strongly believes that these activities help every generation of employees engage and exchange ideas with each other (Interviews#12–27; Observation). According to the CEO of Doi Kham:

Knowledge-sharing sessions are examples of the employee relations activities used by Boon Rawd Group and Kasikorn Bank to encourage young employees to share their ideas/perspectives with their seniors and older employees. They are therefore able to understand one another’s ideas/perspectives. Some ideas/perspectives are novel, and their seniors or older employees have never thought of or considered them before (Interviews#7–10; Interviews#28–30). In many cases, if young employees propose completely new projects, they may need to ask for advice from or discuss their experiences with their seniors or older employees. Of course, these cross-generational relationships should be better than those amid a lack of knowledge-sharing activities (Interviews#28–30).

Overall, the empirical findings derived from the case studies demonstrate that all seven organisations have implemented a bundle of ten HR practices to foster synergy across the various generations of employees in their organisations: age-/generation-neutral recruitment and selection policies; equal access to training and development opportunities; coaching; mentoring systems; reverse mentoring systems; job shadowing; the development and maintenance of a corporate culture of openness; age-/generation-neutral career and promotion systems; flexible benefit plans; and encouraging cross-generational employees to participate in employee relations activities.

Based on a cross-case analysis of empirical findings, this paper provides support for the following arguments regarding the adoption and implementation of inclusive HR practices that foster synergy among ageing and other generations of employees in organisations. First, the bundle of inclusive HR practices for managing various generations of employees in organisations can be classified into 10 HR practices: age-/generation-neutral recruitment and selection practices, equal access to training and development opportunities, coaching, mentoring systems, reverse mentoring systems, job shadowing, the development and maintenance of a corporate culture of openness, age-/generation-neutral career and promotion systems, flexible benefit plans, and encouraging cross-generational employees to participate in employee relations activities. The HR practices incorporated into this bundle are interrelated and internally consistent with one another (MacDuffie, 1995), i.e. they reinforce one another in the accomplishment of organisational goals via the synergy they foster among ageing and other generations of employees in organisations. One crucial point here is that the empirical findings in this paper extend the prior literature on age-related HR practices by proposing HR practices that both ensure equal opportunities among cross-generational employees within organisations in terms of recruitment and selection, training and development, promotion, and managerial support to enhance perceptions among these employees that they are treated fairly and non-discriminatorily (Böehm et al., 2014; Burmeister et al., 2018; Rudolph and Zacher, 2021) and foster cross-generational employees in the EME of Thailand to work together smoothly (Boehm et al., 2021).

These 10 inclusive HR practices are especially appropriate for organisations located in EMEs that are in ageing or aged societies, including Thailand, because they help foster cross-generational employees in organisations to work together very smoothly and prevent age discrimination in organisations. Generation Y and Z employees can gain a better understanding of ageing employees’ insights, attitudes, and behaviours. Conversely, these ageing baby boomers or Generation X employees realise and learn how to work with younger generations of employees. Additionally, these HR practices should help motivate and retain high-potential ageing employees in firms over time (Böehm et al., 2014; Boehm et al., 2021) in that these employees feel that their experiences are meaningful to the survival of organisations in the era of uncertainty.

With respect to each of the 10 inclusive HR practices, age-/generation-neutral recruitment and selection practices enable organisations to recruit and select job candidates on the basis of their potential without giving attention to their age or generation. Various recruitment channels are used to recruit candidates, enabling candidates from every generation to choose the recruitment channel that is most appropriate for them to apply for a job. The selection tools that these organisations apply for are fair and do not lead to ageism or age discrimination (Cebola et al., 2023). These tools evaluate job candidates based on their professional characteristics and capabilities instead of their personal characteristics, such as age or generation. In fact, many of the case study organisations are willing to recruit employees who have retired from other organisations if these retired employees demonstrate strong potential and excellent work performance. In this context, the reputation of these organisations among job candidates, as inclusive workplaces for cross-generational employees, will also markedly improve if they implement this HR practice.

The HR practice of equal access to training and development opportunities encourages every generation of employees to become lifelong learners. The upskilling and reskilling of these employees allow them to adapt to the rapidly changing business world. Specifically, each generation of employees has an opportunity to attend training and development courses that help them work easily with other generations (Boehm et al., 2021). For example, some groups of training and development courses prepare baby boomers and Generation X employees for drastic technological changes, enabling them to work with Generation Y and Z members. Some groups of training courses prepare every generation of employees for career advancement whenever they have the potential for career growth. Other groups of training courses help prepare older employees to be healthy enough to work smoothly with other generations. This HR practice also fosters the perception of procedural fairness among cross-generational employees, which ultimately plays a crucial role in fostering employee synergy within an organisation.

Coaching, mentoring systems, and reverse mentoring systems help different generations of employees work together in teams, projects, units, or departments and find appropriate solutions to their various work-related or, potentially, personal problems. They also encourage people from different generations to learn from one another. In this context, not only do Generation Y and Z members learn from baby boomers or Generation X members, but baby boomers and Generation X members also learn from Generation Y and Z members. Furthermore, these practices foster a positive and inclusive workplace environment in organisations. Importantly, these three practices also play important roles in reducing the biases of one generation of employees towards another because employees are able to comprehend one another’s insights and perspectives through these HR practices (Gadomska-Lila, 2020). Additionally, these HR practices, especially mentoring systems, help maintain valuable knowledge and experience within organisations, fostering the transfer of such knowledge and experience from the current to the next generation of employees.

Additionally, job shadowing plays an important role in enabling young generations to learn and observe how older generations work and succeed in their careers. In particular, this HR practice helps develop talented, young employees, ensuring that these employees have better critical thinking skills, understand how to cope with problems or derive alternatives, and are able to make decisions regarding the best solutions. These young employees learn, from older employees, how to manage their time and stress to be successful in their daily working lives (Rupčić, 2018, 2024). These young employees may also learn how to manage a crisis that may occur anytime in the disruptive world and how to balance their working and personal lives. Hence, close relationships between young employees and older employees, who are mostly top executives of organisations, improve the inclusiveness of their workplace environments and the synergy among ageing and other generations of employees within organisations.

In the case of the development and maintenance of a corporate culture of openness and challenge, such a corporate culture encourages young generations to challenge older generations’ ideas/insights/perspectives; meanwhile, it enables older generations of employees to be open-minded and willing to listen to and accept the different ideas/insights/perspectives of young employees. In particular, such corporate culture also plays a crucial role in shaping employees’ attitudes, thoughts, and behaviours and their interactions with one another (O'Reilly and Chatman, 1996). In this context, a culture of openness and challenge serves as a social control, increasing behavioral consistency across employees in organisations. Thus, it enhances young employees’ motivation to initiate novel ideas/projects that fit changing business contexts (Camilleri et al., 2023). Notably, such a corporate culture takes quite a long time to develop and maintain. Therefore, top managers play an important, continuous role in supporting the processes of development and maintenance through their provision of various resources, including budgets, to ensure that this corporate culture can be maintained over the long term.

Age-/generation-neutral career and promotion systems allow every generation of employees to be eligible for promotions to managerial levels (Boehm et al., 2021; Fan et al., 2023). Age or generation is not a criterion for selecting potential candidates for such promotions. Rather, candidates’ performance and potential for career growth are considered among one of the most important criteria for doing so. In this case, cross-generational employees believe that their organisation’s career and promotion system is fair (distributive justice) and that everyone, across generations, has an equivalent chance for a promotion to a higher position if they demonstrate their truly effective work performance and strong potential for growth (Armstrong‐Stassen and Ursel, 2009; Armstrong‐Stassen and Schlosser, 2011). Distributive justice here refers to how fairly cross-generational employees perceive their organisations’ rewards or promotions (Armstrong-Stassen, 2008). Thus, an inclusive workplace environment likely develops within organisations to foster synergy between their older and younger generations of employees.

Flexible benefit plans, of course, are a response to the different needs of employees across ages/generations. Specifically, people in one generation tend to have perspectives and needs that are different from those of other generations. For example, ageing employees may need more annual medical expense reimbursements than young employees do. In contrast, young employees may need fewer annual medical expense reimbursements than ageing employees while paying special attention to scholarships for continuing their master’s degrees. Therefore, flexible benefit plans, or so-called cafeteria-style benefit plans, help various generations of employees select the most appropriate benefits that best fit their needs (Huang et al., 2023). However, some organisations may perceive that the adoption and implementation of flexible benefit plans are quite expensive and that they may not be able to control operating costs upon implementation. Nevertheless, to survive in the disruptive business context, organisations require additional benefits in their benefit packages to respond to the needs of young generations and ageing employees while sustaining an inclusive environment.

Encouraging cross-generational employees to participate in employee relations activities, especially team building, ice-breaking, and knowledge-sharing activities, helps cross-generational employees spend their time together and comprehend one another’s thoughts, ideas, and perspectives (Siette et al., 2021). These activities thus tend to play an important role in minimising the biases that one generation has towards another and in creating and maintaining positive relationships among various generations of employees. Additionally, the adoption and implementation of knowledge-sharing sessions foster the development of creative ideas/projects among young generations. Therefore, older generations of employees can provide valuable advice that adds the final polish needed to transform these ideas/projects into reality.

In fact, the author proposes that the ten inclusive HR practices in this paper can be grouped into three different bundles (Boehm et al., 2021):

1. the bundle of age-/generation-neutral promotion;

2. the bundle of cross-generational relationship building and maintenance; and

3. the bundle of the accommodation of generational differences.

Specifically, the bundle of age-/generation-neutral promotion consists of HR practices that are adopted and implemented to foster an age-/generation-neutral workplace climate and equity within organisations. It includes the following HR practices: age-/generation-neutral recruitment and selection practices, equal access to training and development opportunities, and age-/generation-neutral career and promotion systems. The bundle of cross-generational relationship building and maintenance consists of HR practices that are adopted and implemented to encourage cross-generational employees to develop and maintain positive relationships within organisations. It includes the following HR practices: coaching, mentoring systems, reverse mentoring systems, job shadowing, and encouraging cross-generational employees to participate in employee relations activities. Finally, the bundle of the accommodation of generational differences consists of HR practices that are adopted and implemented to facilitate cross-generational employees who have different characteristics and needs so that they can stay together in organisations. It includes the following HR practices: the development and maintenance of a corporate culture of openness and flexible benefit plans.

In conclusion, each HR practice in the three bundles of inclusive HR practices likely reinforces one another, fostering synergy among the various generations of employees in an organisation. Thus, it follows that the number of complaints/disputes among these generations should be reduced by such practices and that the level of trust among cross-generational employees should be greater.

Second, this paper suggests that the adoption and implementation of several of the practices included in these inclusive HR bundles tend to be influenced by national institutions in terms of national skill formation system specifics and by national culture in terms of the cooperativeness and willingness to avoid workplace conflict (Napathorn, 2022c). In particular, the adoption and implementation of age-/generation-neutral recruitment and selection practices and equal access to training and development opportunities tend to be influenced by specifics in the national skill formation system of Thailand. That is, the problems of skill shortages and mismatches in the Thai labour market reflect the production of an insufficient number of workers for the needs of organisations across industries (Napathorn, 2018). In this context, these organisations must ensure that they have enough job applicants to fill vacant job positions through the use of age-/generation-neutral recruitment and selection practices. This HR practice does not focus primarily on job candidates’ age/generation and pays special attention to job candidates with strong potential and excellent work performance. Organisations are thus provided with greater opportunities to fill vacant positions within a reasonable amount of time. Additionally, when organisations adopt and implement the HR practice of equal access to training and development opportunities, their employees from various generations tend to possess the knowledge, skills, and abilities for coping with rapidly changing technologies and other external contexts, enabling them to be eligible for a promotion to a higher position and take greater responsibility for their performance (Boehm et al., 2021). This, of course, should help alleviate the problems of skill shortages and mismatches in the labour market.

The adoption and implementation of inclusive HR practices, especially coaching, mentoring systems, reverse mentoring systems, job shadowing, and encouraging cross-generational employees to participate in employee relations activities, tend to be influenced by national culture in terms of the cooperativeness and willingness to avoid workplace conflict (Napathorn and Kuruvilla, 2018; Napathorn, 2022c). In particular, in the Thai cultural context, young employees tend to feel that older employees play a father/mother/uncle/aunt role and thus seek to avoid potential workplace conflicts when they have ideas/insights/perspectives that are different from those of older employees (Napathorn, 2022c). Additionally, within this cultural context, cross-generational employees typically want to be part of a team or project and do not want to be isolated from their colleagues. Thus, the adoption and implementation of coaching, mentoring systems, reverse mentoring systems, job shadowing, and encouraging cross-generational employees to participate in employee relations activities play important roles in helping cross-generational employees intermingle and work together smoothly. Moreover, through these practices, they tend to be more willing to accept one another’s ideas/insights/perspectives and to adapt to new work processes or technologies that will help them survive in the new business context.

Finally, the three bundles of inclusive HR practices proposed in this paper are likely to be adopted and implemented in organisations that have previously adopted and implemented other types of HR bundles, such as high-performance HR bundles (Guest, 2017, 2025), high-commitment HR bundles (Guest, 2017, 2025), or high-involvement HR bundles (Guest, 2017, 2025). In particular, bundles of inclusive HR practices tend to reinforce these other HR bundles in attaining organisational goals. For instance, the adoption and implementation of these inclusive HR bundles tend to reduce the level of workplace conflict, which is likely to foster trust and promote organisational commitment among employees, ultimately leading to better organisational performance (Drury and Fasbender, 2024). Additionally, inclusive HR bundles can be adopted and implemented in organisations that are adopting and implementing HR practices that are specifically designed for ageing employees (Napathorn, 2022c). This group of HR practices typically consists of 4 groups: growth, maintenance, recovery, and regulation (Napathorn, 2023). The main objectives of this group of HR practices are to increase ageing employees’ knowledge and skills to match changing technological and sociocultural contexts, to ensure that ageing employees are healthy enough to continue working at the desired level of functioning even though their health conditions may deteriorate as they age; to help retain knowledgeable, skilful, and experienced ageing employees in organisations over time; and to help these ageing employees address job demands that are reduced to fit health conditions or personal problems/sickness when their current level of functioning cannot be maintained or restored (Napathorn, 2023). However, no specific HR practices in this group of HR practices are aimed at helping ageing employees work together smoothly with other generations of employees. Thus, the three inclusive HR bundles should reinforce those HR practices specifically designed for ageing employees, especially organisations’ recovery HR practices for retaining and transferring knowledge, skills, and experience from ageing employees to younger generations of employees.

In summary, this paper proposes inclusive HR practices that organisations should adopt and implement to foster synergy among the various generations of their employees. It also provides implications of national institutions and cultures for the adoption and implementation of these inclusive HR practices across organisations (see Table 4 for a summary of the empirical findings).

This paper proposes three bundles of ten inclusive HR practices that foster uniformity among ageing and other generations of employees across organisations in the EME of Thailand: age-/generation-neutral recruitment and selection practices; equal access to training and development opportunities; coaching; mentoring systems; reverse mentoring systems; job shadowing; the development and maintenance of a corporate culture of openness; age-/generation-neutral career and promotion systems; flexible benefit plans; and encouraging cross-generational employees to participate in employee relations activities. These findings also suggest that the adoption and implementation of some of the abovementioned inclusive HR practices tend to be influenced by national institutions and by the national culture of the country where organisations are located. These empirical findings contribute to the literature on age-related HR practices by suggesting a bundle of HR practices that foster an age-diverse workplace climate while at the same time encouraging cross-generational employees to work together smoothly (Boehm et al., 2021). Additionally, this paper contributes to the literature on age-related HRM, which has overlooked EMEs, including the underresearched country of Thailand, which is an aged society and will become a superaged society in the future.

This paper also provides practical implications for the top managers and/or HR managers of organisations in Thailand and other EMEs. First, these organisations should provide all employees with training and development opportunities equally, regardless of their age or generation. Second, organisations should recruit and select potential job candidates on the basis of their performance and potential, not their personal characteristics such as age or generation. Third, the promotion of employees to higher positions should also be based on their performance and potential, not their age or generation. Fourth, organisations should apply the practices of coaching, mentoring, reverse mentoring, and job shadowing to foster positive relationships among cross-generational employees so that these employees work together smoothly. Fifth, organisations should encourage cross-generational employees to participate in employee relations activities to maintain positive relationships among those employees. Sixth, organisations should develop and maintain a corporate culture of openness by providing new generations of employees with opportunities to present their ideas and insights and offering them opportunities to participate in decision-making processes. Finally, in the case of flexible benefit plans, organisations need to give special attention to their overall budgets and may not need to offer many benefit plans. Rather, organisations should offer only 3–4 benefit plans that respond to the needs of each generation to easily control their related budgets.

Additionally, this paper has social/policy implications for the government and/or relevant public agencies of Thailand and several other EMEs, such as Malaysia and Vietnam, especially as these economies are becoming ageing societies. Specifically, these governments should encourage organisations in their countries to implement three bundles of ten inclusive HR practices to foster synergy among ageing and other generations of employees. Some of the HR practices in these bundles, especially age-/generation-neutral recruitment and selection practices and equal access to training and development opportunities tend to play an important role in alleviating the problems of skill shortages and mismatches in the labour markets of these economies. Moreover, those governments should invest in anti-ageism and multigenerational educational initiatives to create greater cross-generational understanding among people in their countries. Furthermore, they should expand budgets and enforcement mechanisms for the Department of Labour related to age discrimination.

Nevertheless, this paper has limitations in terms of its methodology. Because this research is based on case studies of seven organisations across industries in Thailand, its findings may not be generalisable to all other organisations across other countries. Rather, the aim of this paper is to further the discussion on the inclusive HR practices that promote synergy among various generations of employees in organisations. Another limitation of this research is that it does not include organisations in several other industries, including the agricultural and fishery or hospitality industries. Future research may thus explore the inclusive HR practices that organisations in these industries should adopt and implement from the perspectives of both managers and employees within them. Moreover, future research should examine how the inclusive HR practices proposed in this paper are related to various aspects of organisational performance. Furthermore, future research should compare different bundles of HR practices, including the age-specific HR practices and inclusive HR practices proposed in this paper, in terms of their antecedents and effects. Finally, multilevel analysis of how national-level factors influence the adoption and implementation of inclusive HR practices should deepen our understanding of the topic of inclusive HR practices proposed in this paper.

Funding: This paper was financially supported by the Office of the Permanent Secretary of Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Research, and Innovation.