Page 71 - increasing-the-value-of-age-guidance-in-employers-age-management-strategies

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

This uniform approach also tends to adopt the erroneous idea that people in
need of guidance are in deficit, rather than in need to clarify and explore their
potential. The idea that people who need to develop CMS are a problem to solve
may drive policy to underestimate the human resource potential of individuals, by
not differentiating them. Also, ‘one size fits all’ approaches carry the risk of
demotivating participants, since they frequently do not respond to their needs.
Although assessment strategies are more time-consuming, they tend to be
more rationalising. They try to ensure that the individuals will find satisfactory
responses and will not permanently fail in labour market integration, and will not
become permanent clients of support and benefit systems.

4.7. Conclusions

Based on the analysis as presented in this chapter, the following can be
concluded:
(a) perspectives in national policies have changed from early retirement to
extending working life. This supports the establishment of active age
management strategies, a relatively a new concept in many countries, not
only in policy but also at employer level;
(b) different definitions are used for active age management, and sometimes it
has not been agreed what kind of specific activities fall under this
description. Active age management policies are mostly focused on the
unemployed and the older worker around retirement age;
(c) there are few national policies or mandatory guidelines for active age
management in workplaces (apart from the positive example of France).
Active age management is mainly stimulated by financial incentives to
employers and employees, the provision of self-help material by internet and
handbooks, and promotion and awareness-raising campaigns;
(d) although active age management policies have developed over the past
decade, guidance is often not a specific focus in this very broad strategy
development. Nonetheless, limited European comparative insights are
available on the volume and composition of companies offering guidance
and counselling activities for their workers, and more specific older workers;
(e) career guidance strategies are established, but these are generally focused
on young age cohorts (in schools) and the unemployed (employment
centres) limiting access for older workers. The trend seems to be in the
direction of the self-serving citizen. Much information is available and online
support seems to be increasingly used for providing information and
guidance, though difficult to use some target groups;

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