Continuing Education Officers for In-Company Training with a Focus on Older Employees

Background and problem statement

Continuing vocational training has become a key prerequisite for the employability of workers and for the competitiveness of businesses: the half-life of job-related knowledge is decreasing, whilst technical and organisational changes are accelerating. However, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in particular often lack the conditions necessary for a forward-looking human resources and skills development policy. Responsibility for further training is often not clearly defined; the pressures of day-to-day business dictate procedures, and employees are only sent on courses once gaps in their knowledge have become glaringly obvious. Systematic early identification of skills requirements and their implementation within the company rarely takes place.

This situation is exacerbated by demographic change. Even at the start of the project, a good third of all employees were aged 45 or over, and major shifts in the age structure of the workforce – both in the labour market and within companies’ staff – were expected in the period up to 2020. At the same time, only a few organisations specifically included older employees in in-company further training, formed working groups with a mix of ages, or designed workplaces to be age-friendly; the vast majority of organisations had no such measures in place. Yet studies show that older people do not learn any worse, but rather differently, and are motivated to undertake further training when their prior education and practical experience are taken into account and the learning tasks are closely related to their own working environment.

This is where the project ‘In-Company Continuing Professional Development Officer for In-Company Training with a Focus on Older Employees’ (BWBB) came in. Employees from SMEs in Bremen and Bremerhaven, who were already dealing with HR issues in their day-to-day work, were trained as in-house continuing professional development officers whilst continuing to work. The aim was to establish a dedicated role within the organisations which – rather than relying on external consultancy – would regularly identify training needs, plan, organise and evaluate company-specific further training measures, and explicitly make the professional development of older employees a central focus of organisational change processes. The project, funded by the European Social Fund (ESF), was managed by the Economic and Social Academy of the Bremen Chamber of Employees gGmbH (WiSoAK); the University of Bremen provided academic support, whilst the Works and Staff Council Centre (BPZ) of the Bremen Chamber of Employees supported the project through contacts with companies and public relations work.

Research questions

1. How are demographic change and ageing workforces reflected in small and medium-sized enterprises, and how is age-related diversity perceived within organisations?

2. What are the skills requirements, organisational needs and expectations regarding the role of a ‘Company Continuing Professional Development Officer’, who is responsible for staff development with the explicit involvement of older employees?

3. How should a work-based, modular training programme – comprising face-to-face sessions, online modules, in-company implementation and coaching – be structured so that continuing professional development officers can independently identify training needs and plan, implement and evaluate measures?

4. Which measures relating to an age-friendly HR and training policy are already being implemented or planned within organisations, and what implications does this have for the design of continuing vocational training?

Approach

The project was organised as a consortium: WiSoAK was responsible for coordination, recruiting companies, delivering the training programme and operating the learning platform; the BPZ facilitated access to companies through its corporate contacts; the University of Bremen provided academic support by initiating contacts with companies, surveying organisational requirements and skills needs, assisting with the development of learning profiles and work-process-oriented module sequences, supporting the coaching process, and evaluating the entire course of the project. The work was structured into the following steps:

• Assessment of companies’ interests and skills potential: At the start of the project, the participants’ individual skills profiles and training needs were assessed through standardised interviews (basic qualifications, previous further training, current and desired areas of responsibility, company structures, status of staff development, use of ICT, self-assessment of skills). In addition, brief surveys were conducted with company management regarding planned reorganisation processes, support for older employees, communication and cooperation structures, leadership styles in practice, and expectations of the training coordinators. The results were incorporated into the adaptation of the training modules.

• Modular training: The training comprised five modules spread over ten days of face-to-face sessions: (1) Roles and responsibilities of in-house training officers within the organisation, (2) Core competencies (facilitation, visualisation, presentation; educational and organisational projects), (3) staff development (strategic staff development, project management, the position of older employees within the organisation), (4) Psychology of learning among older employees (age-appropriate workplace HR and training development, work organisation measures for older employees, mixed-age work teams and workplace networks) and (5) Continuing professional development (quality and evaluation of continuing professional development, training management and monitoring, sustainability through regional networks, law).

• Blended learning and implementation in the workplace: The face-to-face phases were supplemented by tutor-supported online phases on a learning platform (workplace research into learning within the organisation, learning journals, peer-to-peer case consultations, mutual support in organising further training measures, project development for the examination). Between the phases, participants implemented what they had learnt in their own organisations – from assessment and planning through to the delivery of organisation-specific training programmes – initially supported by coaching, and increasingly on their own initiative. The programme culminated in a practical final project, documented by a certificate. Gender-sensitive teaching methods and the consideration of the learning needs of older employees were guiding principles of the programme design.

• Runs and evaluation: Following a preparatory phase (July to September 2006), the training programme was delivered in two runs (October 2006 to March 2007 and May to October 2007) and evaluated by December 2007. The evaluation was designed to be formative, participatory and tailored to the target group: the project stages were continuously reviewed with companies and participants, any undesirable developments were corrected at an early stage, and the experiences were collated for transfer to comparable training projects. To ensure the long-term establishment of a culture of continuing professional development within the participating SMEs, a network linking the businesses was planned.

Results

The project developed and piloted a work-based training programme for in-house training coordinators in small and medium-sized enterprises, combining face-to-face modules, online phases, in-company implementation and coaching, whilst systematically incorporating the professional development of older employees. The company surveys and experiences gained from the project were incorporated into the study ‘Diversity Management: Continuing Vocational Training in the Context of Demographic Change’. It examines how demographic change is reflected within organisations, how age-based diversity is perceived, and which measures have already been implemented or are planned – and what this means for continuing vocational training. The key finding is that personalised or age-differentiated training programmes fall short if they are not embedded within the workplace and do not take individual circumstances into account; diversity management provides a workplace framework for designing continuing professional development in the context of demographic change.

Gessler, M., & Stübe, B. (2008). Diversity Management: Berufliche Weiterbildung im demografischen Wandel [Diversity management: Continuing vocational training in demographic change]. Waxmann. https://www.waxmann.com/buecher/Diversity-Management