Working and ageing - Cedefop - Europa

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192 Working and ageing Guidance and counselling for mature learners Nor will chronological age serve as a standardised benchmark for studies. As with all aspects of ageing, people will have different perspectives built through a whole range of experiences from the highly personal (such as lifespans of parents, siblings and friends) to views in common currency in the media and social settings. More research is needed to fill existing gaps, which include: age-group (many studies of future time perspective are with much younger or much older age cohorts than the 50-70 year age range that covers the period up to and after conventional retirement age, when most people disengage from the workforce); gender, allowing for different family and career paths of adult men and women; how careers advisers specifically can best frame these issues to address them in their work with their clients. Addressing these issues in work with clients raises ethical questions about the role of the careers adviser. Clients may have beliefs about the time and opportunities likely to be available to them. Is it ethically right for the careers adviser to understand and support within the limitations of such personal beliefs (even when they are at odds with objective information), or should the careers adviser challenge and seek to change personal beliefs? The latter action may accord with policy pressures in many countries where demographic changes are leading to a move towards longer working lives. 10.2.2. Respect for experience Experience featured more strongly in respondentsʼ stories than formal qualification, reflecting McNairʼs comment that ʻformal qualifications, which are often used as a proxy for skill, provide a very approximate measure of the skills required for any given jobʼ (McNair, 2010, p. 19). Those with limited formal learning were well aware that they had learned, even if this was not appreciated by potential employers. Doreen, without any formal qualifications, commented ʻI must have learnt because I knew how to do thingsʼ. Anne (age 52, an unemployed administrator) commented on the wealth of information ʻin my head and in my lifeʼ. Values too become clearer, and are more clearly articulated, with age: ʻyou know more about yourself when you are older. When you are younger you have an instinct for what you like and could do. As you get older youʼre more willing to say to yourself, ʻI really donʼt want […]ʼ (Molly, participant in Barhamʼs [2008] study). Anne shares this view, commenting that as people get older they become more adaptable, based on experiencing and having coped with pressures, but that they are also more inclined to stick to their values: ʻmy ideals havenʼt changed since I was a teenager.ʼ Colin (age 59, employed as a team leader in manufacturing) demonstrated both flexibility and a strong
CHAPTER 10 Career development in later working life: implications for career guidance with older workers 193 sense of personal values as he gave a sharp critique of top-down management that did not allow for respect for individual workers and awareness of the eventualities of ʻreal lifeʼ. In his case this stretched from flexible planning of his teamʼs work to cope both with late delivery of components and with his teamʼs need for social interaction while working – the need to discuss the big football match of the previous evening. The research produced a picture of some ordinary workpeople who valued the learning they had gained from experience, expressed a willingness to be flexible to meet workplace needs, but held a strong sense of their own values. But with values come sticking points. Janet described her reasons for leaving teaching: ʻwhat am I doing if I donʼt see an outcome for children that is valuable in my eyes?ʼ (Janet, participant in Barhamʼs [2008] study). People bring existing ideas, or schema (Rousseau, 2001), to a prospective psychological contract. These schema include beliefs about promises and obligations, and may include views of the employment contract as a complex relationship or a more simple transaction (Rousseau, 2001). There was little evidence of the latter among respondents to our study. Doreen exemplifies this in her unwillingness to ʻhang aroundʼ despite good pay when the induction training which she believed to be due to her failed to materialise. Colin recounted that he had refused the offer of an otherwise attractive job because the journey to work would be extremely unreliable: ʻIt would be disloyal. If I take on a job, I should be thereʼ. In both cases, the personal schema extends well beyond the transaction symbolised by the pay packet, and implies a mutual rather than a one-sided arrangement (Bal et al., 2010). Within extensive literature on the psychological contract between employer and employee, little attention has been paid to age differences (Bal et al., 2008). Bal et al. (2010) find a difference in views on the psychological contract between those workers with greater or with more restricted future time perspectives (though again there are sample limitations, in that their study was conducted with people beyond conventional retirement age for their country, the Netherlands). Particularly for people with an expansive prospect in relation to the opportunity aspect of future time perspective, moving on to other opportunities may feel possible. Those with a more restricted view of future time perspective, in either of its aspects, may feel trapped by lack of alternative opportunity and/or by personal limitations. Bal et al. (2008) hypothesised that with increasing age and ability to regulate emotions, there would be a reduction in the emotional impact of a perceived breach of the psychological contract by their employer. While this held true for feelings of trust towards their employer, the opposite was found in relation to job
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EN Working and ageing Guidance and
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A great deal of additional informat
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Foreword Population ageing is one o
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Acknowledgements This publication r
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8. Policy, research and practice: s
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14.2. Participation rates of indivi
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CHAPTER 1 Setting the scene: promot
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To improve quality and transparency
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Gomes present the set-up and outcom
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CHAPTER 2 Do European employers sup
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CHAPTER 5 Cognitive ageing in older
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PART 2 Meeting the challenges - Eme
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unmet demand is limited, as is the
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people in the second phase (25-50)
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CHAPTER 7 Learning, work and later
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are now better than ever before, es
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CHAPTER 13 A Swedish programme for
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CHAPTER 14 Realising the potential
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CONCLUSIONS Ageing Europe at work -
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EN Working and ageing Guidance and
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Working and ageing - Cedefop - Europa

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