Working and ageing - Cedefop - Europa

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254 Working and ageing Guidance and counselling for mature learners with their own unit rather than with the armed forces and certainly not, with new government policies. It is also fruitful to discuss the reactions based on theories on organisational resistance. Management literature describes how resistance to change among employees can manifest itself and be overcome. Grey (2003) gives an example of a model in five phases: (a) denial: employees do not realise the need for change; (b) defence: employees realise that change is necessary, but try to avoid it; (c) discarding: routines and approaches start to modify; (d) adaptation: employees adapt to and in the new system; (e) internalisation: the new system becomes a routine. Examples of all five phases of the career switching project, can be found, concurrently, within the armed forces. This is logical considering the different conditions in different parts of the organisation. It is a process that gradually leads to full acceptance in the entire organisation. Management can further the process by giving support, and by providing incentives and positive feedback. First, it has to do with influencing managers in the organisation so their units comply fully with given intentions: inform, develop incentives (also for managers), encourage employees from the target group to apply, create good examples of people who have carried through the process successfully. It would be a mistake to believe it is easy. Military officers have a strong professional identity. Organisations with clear professional areas of responsibility can be characterised using theories on professional bureaucracy. ʻChange in the professional bureaucracy does not sweep in from new administrators taking office to announce major reforms, nor from government technostructures intent on bringing the professionals under their control. Rather, change seeps in by the slow process of changing the professionals – changing who can enter the profession, what they learn in its professional schools (norms as well as skills and knowledge), and thereafter how willing they are to upgrade their skillsʼ (Mintzberg, 1983, p. 213). Insufficient information in many units on the opportunity of career switching is however not necessarily exclusively a manifestation of resistance to organisational change by unit management. There is concern that if you lose a valuable officer with special skills, it is not self-evident that you are allowed to recruit a substitute, and replacement might be very difficult. 13.5.2. Individual barriers related to employability What is employability of military officers? The concept itself is not well-defined. According to the European Commission, employability is generally understood
CHAPTER 13 A Swedish programme for phasing out older employees based on consent and social responsibility 255 as ʻthe capacity for people to be employedʼ and ʻit relates not only to adequacy of their knowledge and competences but also to the incentives and opportunities offered to individuals to seek employmentʼ (European Commission, 2001, p.33). It has mostly been used to characterise the resource of individuals, with respect to how attractive they might be on the labour market, from a social and psychological perspective (Garsten and Jacobsson, 2004; Berntson, 2008). According to this view, employability encompasses personal factors, competence, physical and mental health, availability of social networks, and life style. Van der Heijde and Van der Heijden (2005) proposed the following definition of the concept of employability: ʻthe continuously fulfilling, acquiring or creating of work through the optimal use of competencesʼ. There are also contextual factors that need to be considered (Holmer et al., 2010) when it comes to the possibility for a person to remain in, or to return to, the labour market, barriers that have a systemic character that individuals cannot easily overcome. Such barriers may be with the employer or society, and can be based on negative attitudes with respect to, for example, age, gender, ethnicity and professional background. On the contextual employability of military officers, we saw that their competence is described in terms of leadership. Competence of officers is vague: what sort of leadership? Is it relevant in a civilian organisation? Some aspects affect contextual employability. Since many belonging to the prime target group are aged 50+, general negative attitudes towards older people must also be considered and overcome. When it comes to the individual, employability, defined in a narrow sense is widely variable. The stereotype is that military officers take responsibility, are clear, outspoken, social and full of initiative. These characteristics tend to further employability. They must also possess a high degree of self-esteem. Perceived employability is essential for a person contemplating whether or not to apply for career switching, since the perception itself is important and has consequences for how a person reacts to events in the environment. ʻIf I perceive that I am employable it leads to a higher degree of self-esteem, not the other way aroundʼ (Berntson, 2008). Perceived employability depends on level of education and to what extent people have participated in competence development at work. It is much higher in times of economic growth than in recession. It can be concluded that competence development for the civilian labour market is essential for to what extent persons from the present target group can be career switched voluntarily. The career switching option can in the first place be expected to attract persons with documented and well-validated competence.
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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 8 Policy, research and prac
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will need to be supported by struct
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ʻflexicurityʼ model is challenged
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different forms of retirement (2010
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8.8. Policy considerations CHAPTER
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9.1. Introduction CHAPTER 9 Changin
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CHAPTER 9 Changing patterns of guid
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their continuing learning and devel
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Table 9.4. Use of past work experie
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CHAPTER 10 Career development in la
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life, much will change. Cate and Jo
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Working and ageing - Cedefop - Europa

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