Workplace Subjective Age Multidimensionality: Generation, Age, Tenure, Experience (GATE)

Although less subjective age focused than other scholarly fields, organizational behavior (OB) faces a familiar challenge: comprehending an aging, increasingly age-diverse workforce, yet finding chronological age alone to be a limited predictor of key work outcomes (e.g., performance). A recent OB framework posits that going beyond chronological age necessitates disentangling distinct age-based constructs: perceived Generation (birth cohort), Age (life stage), Tenure (length of time with organization), and Experience (skill set accumulated over time; GATE). Although this framework originated as a means of enhancing predictions for a rapidly aging workforce, this commentary argues that GATE also provides a framework for understanding bases of subjective age itself, including an important distinction between more subjective elements (generation, life stage) versus more objective elements (tenure, experience). Future research on subjective age might well consider applying GATE elements in order to enhance a multidimensional understanding of subjective age underpinnings.