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

productivity and generate innovative insights and products. Organisations see
their productive innovative capacity increase.
At national level, age management strategies contribute to the reduction of
the costs of unemployment and inactivity, because (redundant) older employees
are better equipped for a new job. When strategies encourage cooperation
between stakeholders, for example between firms and schools, this positively
affects the local labour market. Both organisations learn from each other, which
leads to a better match between the skills taught at school and those needed at
work.
However, achieving positive accounts requires meeting certain conditions:
(a) age management strategies require time and money. If these are
insufficient, efforts are not sustained;
(b) age management must be integrated in and/or complement other
organisation policies, such as human resources policy or collective labour
agreements, and in normal work processes (such as appraisal or career
development reviews);
(c) trust is important. If one of the parties does not feel that the strategy is
sincere or a hidden agenda is present, it might fail;
(d) the implementation of the age management strategy requires appropriate
expertise.

Key lessons

Developing framework and institutional conditions for age management
strategies to flourish:
(a) guidance provision is still fragmented, in policy and in actors involved. An
overall framework is needed to stimulate the development of a coherent
system assuring access, quality, and cooperation and encourage the
evolution of career development, also focusing on the needs of older
workers;
(b) better coordination must be achieved: between age management strategies
at national and sector level; between enterprises and external stakeholders;
between guidance providers to streamline their guidance provision for
employed older workers;
(c) a case for career guidance for employed older workers must be made and
communicated more effectively. Employers’ awareness of age management
strategies needs to increase, including the full range of possibilities offered
by guidance activities.

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