Age management

Age management is a new competence for managers and supervisors in all companies and work organizations affected by the demographic change. Also in private and public sector organizations are forced to adjust their functions for all generations. The most urgent need of age management is in companies where heavy physical and/or mental load is present.

The partnership of this project came together with the aim to help tackle this issue and help employers and educators understand the processes of age management. During the last 28 months we have been working on two outputs that should improve accessability to examples of a good practice in age management and share them among the networks of stakeholders: the online tool for sharing the best practice and recommendation for the employers and policymakers.

The creation of the outputs has been completmented by three study visits: to Finland, Italy and Austria. Our teams of professionals have visited the places where age management works and we have talked to those who managed to make it happen.

OBJECTIVES OF THE PROJECT

The main objective of the project is to help the process of adaptation to the rising requirements of the labor market by providing the quality guidance tool for companies (age management advisors or in-company trainers) and VET providers (teachers and trainers).

The main project objective has been fulfilled by the following partial objectives:

– to create a professional network in the problem area and contribute to it;

– to create and provide a high quality age management guidance tool in the two distinct intellectual outputs sections;

– to involve age management trainers (teachers/trainers from VET providers) into the training activities;

– to spread the results of the project within the professional networks of the partners (read more in our Newsletter 5 about the final project results and disseminational conferences).

SHORT-TERM STAFF TRAINING

The main objective of the training was to provide a synergistic environment for learning by doing. The participants took part in two different kinds of activities that complemented each other, providing an optimal conditions for learning the particular methodological approach: visits to the companies, and thematic workshops.

The aims of the visits were:

– to see the functioning age management system in real life;

– to have opportunity to consult the particular age management features with the professional on site;

– to learn about the conditions that are being considered in the particular case study;

– to collect the information relevant for the process of creation of the intellectual outputs of the project.

The aims of the workshops were :

– to train the selected skills and competencies related to the particular case study;

– to elaborate the methodology that could be used to solve the problem under the simulated conditions;

– to learn by doing;

– to find out all the questions an age management advisor might stumble upon during his work;

– to provide the recommendations usable by the guidelines users.

Newsletters from our three training activities:

Training event in Italy, June 2019,

Training event in Finland, October 2019

Training event in Austria, February 2020

Project outputs

We have designed and created two distinct intellectual outputs in this project:  

COLLECTION OF GOOD PRACTICE EXAMPLES

The examples come from the companies in all partner countries where the age management has been implemented and where it is functioning with the visible benefits for the company and community. We have collected 28 examples that are divided according to their origin, area of impact, target age considered etc. Each example is described according to the scheme (unified for all examples) with focus on reflecting those problem areas that are required by the end users.

RECOMMENDATION ON AGE MANAGEMENT IMPLEMENTATION

As each success story of good practice brings a genuine set of conditions under which the company had to take decisions, the example itself represent a unique learning material for the potential end users, which can be either the age management advisors right in the company management system or trainers (in-company trainers working with the employees, or the VET teachers/trainers working with the students and learners in the educational courses). The recommendation provides the insight into the decision making and problem solving processes of the real companies.

We have subjected the information from all the examples to a thorough analysis and summarized the conclusions into a set of recommendations that you can use to inspire and guide your work as an age management manager or a lecturer.

Age Management Implementation: Case Study Analysis and Methodology Recommendation