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Working and ageing
78 Guidance and counselling for mature learners

influenced dimension anticipation and optimisation. Again, no interaction effect
for any of the five dimensions of employability could be found.

4.5.2. Main research findings Wittpoth
Means and standard deviation for the variables under study
On average, employees scored relatively high on all five subscales of
employability, which were occupational expertise (M=4.71, SD=0.51),
anticipation and optimisation (M=3.98, SD=0.69), personal flexibility (M=4.13,
SD=0.63), corporate sense (M=4.20, SD=0.81) and balance (M=4.23,
SD=0.56). All items were measured on a six-point scale running from, for
instance, 1=not at all to 6=totally agree.
Concerning respondentsʼ participation in HRD, 101 of 130 respondents
appeared to have participated in one or more HRD activities within the past
year. In total, 270 HRD activities were reported. On average, of the active
ones, employees participated in 2.57 activities (SD=1.49), 50% participated
in an external course or training and 50% received informal feedback from a
colleague or supervisor. About one third (32.3%) took part in training on the
job, 29.2% engaged in learning a new task or function and 20.8% received
formal feedback from a mentor or coach. Twenty percent reported to have
learned through self-study and 5.4% learned by means of networking with
people outside the organisation. The group of employees who did not
participate in any HRD activity within the past year had a significantly longer
tenure, and was significantly older than the group of employees that did. HRD
activities were experienced as more formal than informal (M=3.04, SD=0.77),
measured on a five-point scale running from 1=most informal to
5=most formal. A one-sample t-test showed that the HRD activity ʻexternal
course or trainingʼ was perceived significantly more formal than average
formality, while training on the job did not differ from average formality. HRD
activities ʻmentor or coach, informal feedback and self-studyʼ were significantly
less formal than the mean. HRD activity ʻnetworkingʼ did not significantly differ
from the mean, which can be attributed to the small number of employees
who participated in this activity.

Differences between age groups for the variables under study
Respondents were divided into two age groups, young employees up to and
including 40 years, and older workers over 40 years of age. This categorisation
is in line with earlier research on both employability and age-related HRD
(Maurer et al., 2003; Thijssen, 1996; Boerlijst et al., 1993). In Wittpothʼs
sample, 52.5% of respondents, who indicated their year of birth, could be