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

(c) being the voice of older employees to the various stakeholders and interest
platforms;
(d) contribute to the range of measures within Rabobank aimed at the older
employees.

5.4. Actors involved

This section deals with the different actors involved in age management strategy.
These actors can be divided in two categories: internal parties and external
parties. Internal parties are the direct supervisor/line manager of an older
employee, the human resources department and, in some cases, other
employees (peers of the older employee and younger employees).
Partnerships with external parties can be further divided into two categories:
governance partners and resource partners. Governance partners are involved at
strategic level, advising the organisation about the overall framework and
conditions regarding for the strategy. Resource partners work at operational level,
providing the resources (funding, guidance) needed in implementing the age
management strategy.
Table 8 shows the role of the external actors involved in the different cases.
Some 10 cases report on the involvement of one or more external actors, the
other 10 do not. A small group of cases scores high in the involvement of external
parties on several subjects; eight cases have external parties as governance and
as resource partners.
In the following section we examine how internal and external actors are
involved in financing, development and providing guidance.

5.4.1. Guidance providers
In the case studies, internal actors are the most important providers of guidance.
In all, a manager from the organisation provides guidance while, in most, the
direct supervisor/line manager of the (older) employee is the person providing
guidance activities alongside their management tasks.
This is usually done during formal appraisal talks, career development talks
or informally on-the-job. Most of the time it includes activities such as informing,
advising and coaching. The same people provide information on the active age
management policies of the organisation and the direct supervisor can play an
important role in guiding the employee when they need to change jobs and are
redeployed.

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