Page 119 - increasing-the-value-of-age-guidance-in-employers-age-management-strategies

Increasing the value of age: guidance in employers’ age management strategies

The second priority (widening access to guidance activities) is also valued in
the workplace. However, there are two important aspects of access to guidance
that are worth mentioning:
(a) we will seldom find approaches targeted at specific age groups, with the
exception of mentorships. In most cases, age does not play a big role and
general guidance activities for all age groups tend to dominate;
(b) second, there is the important role of the individual in gaining access to
guidance. In some cases the employee has to ask for guidance; if he/she
does not see the need, then he/she will not seek the career support offered
by guidance activities, such as education programmes or ‘self-help’ IT
training modules and assessments.

The third priority (ensuring quality of guidance) is not high on the agenda of
companies and prevalent in guidance provided at this level. Activities normally do
not conform to any type of quality framework, though some are based on
scientific research and/or known good practices.
An example of this is the research done in Finland (Ilmarinen et al., 1998),
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especially the work ability index ( ): although there is no major case from
Finland, this example is mentioned in other cases. Some cases have been
inspired by examples that have proven their effect in other companies, quality is
usually implied but not made explicit. This kind of non-explicit quality of guidance
is most often based on the collective consciousness of the country and available
examples.
The use of external professionals can be a potential quality indicator, but is
likely incidental, potentially a one-time-deal at the start-up of the age
management strategy. Most guidance is not provided by external professionals. It
is up to the employer to assess the quality of the service provided by the external
professional and to decide if a monitoring system should be implemented. This
does not appear to be an important issue for the employers. Developing a quality
framework for guidance activities is not generally part of the conscious decision-
making process.
The fourth priority; coordination and cooperation of stakeholders, does not
seem to get a lot of attention in the cases. Guidance activities are, in most cases,
organised internally, through involvement of the human resources department or
the direct supervisor. Some cooperation does happen, through external parties
such as experts, consultants, trainers and the public employment service. These
cases seem to be more the exception than the rule.

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( ) http://www.ageingatwork.eu/?i=ageingatwork.en.tools.4 [accessed 27.3.2014].

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