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Working and ageing
174 Guidance and counselling for mature learners

these individuals were driving their own development, liked learning new
things related to their job and enjoyed new challenges at work, partly because
they offered opportunities for learning. The career decision-making styles of
respondents were mixed, but again emphasis on learning and development
was strongly apparent, with learning from previous experience and needing
to reflect, plan and analyse when thinking about career development all
emphasised. Willingness to take opportunities as they arose also reflected
proactiveness of most respondents (Brown et al., 2010).
Respondents, however, had varying degrees of success in the labour
market over their life courses and relatively few had completely untroubled
career histories. Their learning and work trajectories resonated with the
structural conditions they faced. For example, in Romania and Poland workers
over age 45 had to negotiate major shifts in societal and organisational
structures and had to demonstrate ability to operate effectively in very different
contexts. Personal agency is clearly an important driver of individual work and
learning trajectories, but for many older workers their working lives had
become more complex. Additionally, it was found that:
(a) there is an increased role for reflection and reflexivity as individuals shape
their work trajectories (choices and possibilities have expanded and
structural, organisational and technological change have added
complexity to work trajectories);
(b) experience developed through engagement with challenging work is the
main vehicle for professional growth, but this needs to be supplemented
in various ways and individuals have choices in combining learning
activities (formal, non-formal and informal) with which they engage;
(c) individuals seek a degree of personal autonomy in how their careers
develop (and the meaning attached to career) but, in parallel, they also seek
opportunities to exchange experiences with peers, colleagues and experts.
The survey findings provide support for the idea that individuals are
responsible actors in creating their own career pathways through learning and
development linked to opportunities in education, training, employment and
other contexts. However, at the same time, there is an urgent need to support
individuals in navigating their way through increasingly complex work and life
contexts and, in particular, by paying attention to the following factors:
(a) reflection and guidance support: helping individuals become more
reflective at individual level through provision of career guidance and
counselling as a key component of a lifelong learning strategy, coupled
with introducing reflective strategies in organisations (in support of both
individual empowerment and organisational development). Even within