# How age-inclusive human resource practices relate to career sustainability: the role of work-family enrichment and protean career orientation

## TL;DR

This study shows how age-friendly workplace practices help employees maintain sustainable careers, especially when they value personal growth and balance work and family.

## Contribution

The study introduces protean career orientation as a boundary condition for how age-inclusive HR practices affect career sustainability.

## Key findings

- Age-inclusive HR practices enhance career sustainability through work-family enrichment.
- Protean career orientation strengthens the link between HR practices and work-family enrichment.
- The effect is stronger when employees have a high protean career orientation.

## Abstract

Drawing on conservation of resource theory and work-home resources model, this study explores how age-inclusive human resource (HR) practices related to employees’ career sustainability through their work-family enrichment. In line with work-home resource model, we introduce a boundary condition, protean career orientation, to explain when our proposed associated may unfold. We collected data in three waves from 244 employees to test our hypotheses. Results show that age-inclusive HR practices promote employees’ career sustainability through the mediating effect of work-family enrichment. Our findings also emphasize that protean career orientation strengthens the relationship between age-inclusive HR practices and work-family enrichment. Age-inclusive HR practices were more positively linked to career sustainability via work-family enrichment when employees had a high (versus low) protean career orientation. Our research provides a better understanding of how and when age-inclusive HR practices lead to sustainable career.