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CHAPTER 11
Maintaining senior employment: some lessons from best practices in France 213

are changing: virtual communications, through various IT media and call
platforms, has taken over from more traditional paper-based customer relations.
This meant that some 50 people, whose work involved use of lamination and
document enclosure machines, found their jobs under threat. Some of these
individuals were the oldest and most long-standing workers in the company.
The company instituted a nouveau départ (new beginning) programme, to
work toward the following aims: convincing employees to redeploy into other
jobs and support them to make this move successfully. It proceeded from a
broader forecast-based jobs and skills management agreement (gestion
prévisionnelle des emplois et des compétences – GPEC). To ensure
appropriate job mobility management, the GPEC agreement calls for job
mapping, interjob cross-bridges and job fact sheets. Interjob cross-bridges
are used to outline possible pathways between different jobs, set out in terms
of skills expected, as laid out in the job description sheets. The tools draw
upon the job observatory, a labour dialogue and information and exploration
body dealing with developments in the company and its activities.
The ʻnew beginningʼ system is a comprehensive programme. It includes
communication, training and support, at all stages of the process, as well as
mobilisation on the part of all employees and members of management in the
originating and destination work sectors:
(a) introduction to new job: tour and interaction with the employees, all team
players mobilised to extend the best possible welcome;
(b) support employeeʼs ability to integrate new skills: identification of skills
already in place and aptitude tests in the workstation;
(c) training: one month of external training in IT and the basics of telephone-
based customer relations;
(d) entry into new position and upskilling: one month of internal training on
tools specific to the company, with a specially-trained mentor;
(e) follow-up: a weekly appointment with the human resources manager to
check progress throughout the training period. Return to the previous
position if the training does not proceed well, or extend duration of the
training period, where necessary;
(f) recognition: certificate of completion awarded at public ceremony, to give
recognition to employees who have taken the step to change jobs.

Key success factors
Success factors related to system design are:
(a) flexibility in duration of training period: if some employees needed more
time to learn, it was possible;