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Working and ageing
206 Guidance and counselling for mature learners

have no capacity or ability to introduce measures for ageing workers. The
study was conducted at two levels: first, collecting and analysing available
general company documentation, human resources management methods,
senior employment maintenance policies and practices; and second,
interviewing those involved in the process (company leaders, human
resources managers, worker representatives, employees), to gain a better
understanding of their intentions and achievements and take stock of existing
viewpoints today. The inquiry process, which lasted an average of one to two
days, was then recorded in monographs, summing up the background
information, issues at stake, intentions and achievements and actual
outcomes. No specific size or business sector criteria were applied, when
looking to capture, above all, the most significant initiatives and most diverse
range of situations and practices.
Senior employment maintenance or return to the workplace is dependent
on employability, which in turn results from dynamic interaction between:
(a) characteristics of employeesʼ work environments, which determine the
extent to which they foster professional development;
(b) employeesʼ abilities and their development conditions, the way in which
they are mobilised and the conditions of mobilisation.
This accepted meaning refers to a contemporary approach of the concept
of employability, dynamic and interactive, combining individual and
organisational, internal and external dimensions, that many authors embraced
(Gazier, 1990; 2006; Finot, 2000; Hategekimana and Roger, 2002).
Cedefop defines employability as follows: a combination of factors which
enable individuals to progress towards or get into employment, stay in
employment and progress during their careers (Cedefop, 2008, p. 70). Finot
(2000) points out two types of individual determinants of employability:
characteristics (personality, potential, desires, values, network) and behaviours
(responsiveness, capacity to work autonomously, difficulties, assumption of
responsibility, adaptability). In a more recent article, Saint-Germes (2004)
enumerates the ways human resources management can foster employability:
conditions of completion of work fostering initiative and creativity, vocational
training not only devoted to adapt oneself to the present job but also to develop
broader skills, mobility opportunities conducive to learning, and recognition
methods including helping employees elaborate new career plans. As far as
ergonomics is concerned, Marquié (2010; Marquié and Delgoulet, 1996;
Marquié and Ansiau, 2008) points out that the nature of the job activity itself
can affect development of employeesʼ cognitive resources. Firms fabricate
employability or unemployability, especially when they stabilise employees in