Page 56 - increasing-the-value-of-age-guidance-in-employers-age-management-strategies

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

obligation to keep the worker on for up to a year after the subsidised period
(Nachbeschäftigungspflicht) is not applicable with older workers.
In the Netherlands, extra days of annual leave linked to seniority were
removed to reduce the costs of employing older workers. The Netherlands also
offers compensation to companies that hire older people who subsequently
become ill, as a means of risk reduction.
In Poland, the Act on promotion of employment and labour market
institutions envisages partial or total reimbursement of expenses incurred in a
specified period by an employer who provides employment and training to the
unemployed over 50 years of age. Poland also refunds costs of social insurance
premiums related to employment of an unemployed person of preretirement age.
Professionalisation contracts in France allow an employee over 55 to act as
a tutor for a young worker. The company receives public funding to cover part of
the wages of the old worker, thus promoting active ageing of older workers.
Italy has a similar measure, the solidarity agreement between generations.
This allows for the transformation of contracts of workers over 55 from full-time to
part-time, and, at the same time, to recruit unemployed young people aged under
25 (or 29 if graduates) so that they cover the hours no longer worked by the older
employee.
In Belgium (Flanders) all employees aged over 45 who are made redundant
are entitled to the benefits of an outplacement programme, while in Brussels and
Wallonia there is a right to outplacement support at the employer’s expense.
The European Social Fund is mentioned in almost all country report as an
important source of funds for age management projects. Most of these focus on
how workplaces can be innovative and contribute to workplace learning to deal
with waves of retirement. The ESF funds mostly public sector projects.
Although ESF funding is generally reported as fundamental, the project-
based nature of initiatives funded by the ESF poses challenges to their
sustainability. Despite the benefits created during the implementation phase,
follow-up actions and activities are usually untraceable (at least from public
sources).
Pressure continues to build to devise further policy packages and support
services which can help workers plan their career across the lifespan, with the
perspective of more prolonged working lives. Although initiatives which attempt to
work on the development of career skills and individual planning with a lifelong
perspective can be identified, they are seldom found within an articulated policy.
The increase of the retirement age and the incentives to for older workers to
remain active are evolving at a faster pace than the establishment of guidance
services to support citizens in this process.

49