Page 72 - increasing-the-value-of-age-guidance-in-employers-age-management-strategies

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

(f) guidance provision is generally still fragmented (serving different target
groups, decentralised, and delivered by public and private actors) and
uneven in terms of accessibility, where the main (national) focus seems to
be on the unemployed. There has generally been little coordination between
sectors and between private and public sectors, but this has begun to
change. Lifelong learning, career guidance, employment, and active age
management policies should be better linked;
(g) only a few countries have coherent guidance systems and commonly agreed
quality standards for service delivery (Denmark, the UK, and partly in the
Netherlands). Guidance at company level seems to be mostly a question of
choice of whom they see as a good guidance practitioners or provision;
(h) despite some initiatives trying to find evidence for guidance activities, there
is currently no established method to follow up and evaluate its. The lack of
evidence of the effects of active age management strategies leaves
governments and employers uncertain about the benefits of career
guidance;
(i) only few countries have structured approaches to CMS development for
employed adults. Most of these adopt a mix of formative assessment of
experiences with a curriculum summative strategy of skills development;
(j) although assessment strategies in CMS are more time-consuming, they are
also more relevant for career development and account for individual needs,
age group characteristics and career stage specificities. Nevertheless, the
most common strategy for CMS development in the employment sector is
the provision of uniform, limited training courses in very basic career skills.

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