Working and ageing - Cedefop - Europa
Working and ageing - Cedefop - Europa
Working and ageing - Cedefop - Europa
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when the time comes to identify them. It is common knowledge that<br />
experience can trigger the appropriate movements or the right decisions,<br />
regardless of the complexity involved. This is particularly true with older<br />
workers. The knowledge-based experience identification <strong>and</strong> mentor training<br />
stages, which include articulating experience, putting it into words <strong>and</strong> shaping<br />
it into a story are decisive factors if such processes are to be a success. It is<br />
difficult for the individual to carry out this process alone, <strong>and</strong> a competent<br />
mediator needs to be appointed to show the way. The ʻintermediaryʼ role<br />
played by local bodies such as OPCAs2, professional organisations (CPNEs3,<br />
observatories) <strong>and</strong> consultants, has proved decisive in raising companiesʼ<br />
awareness <strong>and</strong> supporting them as they consider <strong>and</strong> settle some aspects of<br />
gaining <strong>and</strong> passing on experiential knowledge (Caser <strong>and</strong> Conjard, 2009;<br />
Masingue, 2009).<br />
11.5. Recommendations<br />
CHAPTER 11<br />
Maintaining senior employment: some lessons from best practices in France 221<br />
Lessons learned from these three examples are very similar to lessons<br />
learned from other companies with guidance <strong>and</strong> counselling practices. It is<br />
as much the features intrinsic to these systems as well as their consistency<br />
<strong>and</strong> interaction with employeesʼ work environments that appear conducive to<br />
helping older individuals active in the workplace. Consequently, work on both<br />
of these aspects, whatever the setting, appears fundamental.<br />
The approaches observed in the study, while rarely tagged as having been<br />
designed solely for senior workers, consider certain features specific to the<br />
senior population, not in general, but in specific situations: for example, a longst<strong>and</strong>ing<br />
job in a changing environment, a strong job-specific identity, deeply<br />
integrated competences, calls for adaptation of systems. In the call centre<br />
case, a long monolithic experience <strong>and</strong> a strong job-specific identity can drive<br />
adaptation of the training system. Without this adaptation, it could be quite<br />
difficult for a worker with long tenure in a single job <strong>and</strong> not many opportunities<br />
to learn, to acquire new competences.<br />
Where <strong>ageing</strong> workers have to transfer their experience-based knowledge,<br />
a key success factor is help of a mediator. The more experienced you are, the<br />
more this experience is integrated: people are not always conscious of why they<br />
do things in a particular way <strong>and</strong> sometimes simply cannot explain why they<br />
work the way they do. The role of the mediator is to help experienced workers<br />
to identify these specific deeply integrated competences they are not conscious<br />
of, <strong>and</strong> the critical work situations on which learning will have to be based.