Towards Sustainable Employability

Transcription

1 Towards Sustainable Employability Prof. Beatrice van der Heijden, PhD Radboud University, Institute for Management Research, Nijmegen, the Netherlands Open University of the Netherlands

2 Objectives of the Workshop To provide an interdisciplinary, critical analysis and operationalization of the concept of employability in an organizational context. To find out in what ways the employability of individual employees throughout their career can be enhanced?

3 Main issues How can we define employability? How can we measure employability, taking into account the different dimensions that have to be operationalized in order to fully cover the concept?

4 Main issues Which intervening individual, job-related and organizational factors stimulate the development of employability of individual workers, and are there any differences in the strength of the relationship between these factors and employability because of the career stage of the individual employee? What is the relationship between employability and future career success of employees in different age groups.

5 Employability Continuously fulfilling, acquiring or creating work through the optimal use of competences (Van der Heijde & Van der Heijden, 2004; Van der Heijden, De Lange, Demerouti, & Van der Heijde, 2009).

6 Dimensions of Employability Occupational competence. Anticipation and optimization. Personal flexibility. Corporate sense. Balance.

7 Occupational competence Knowledge. Meta-cognitive knowledge. Skills. Social recognition. Growth & flexibility (flexpertise).

8 Anticipation and optimization It does not concern simple adaptation but preparing for future changes in a personal and creative manner, and thereby striving for the best possible results. Due to the complexity of work and the difficulty for employers to predict future employment content, increasingly, employees themselves have to enact their jobs (see also Weick, 1996).

9 Personal flexibility The capacity for smooth transition between jobs and organizations. Adapting easily to all kinds of changes on the internal and external labour market.

10 Corporate sense The participation and performance in different work groups like the organization, team, occupational community, and in other networks. It is about sharing responsibilities, knowledge, experiences, feelings, credits, failures, goals, etceteras.

11 Balance Balance signifies compromising between opposite employers interests, as well as opposite employees interests. Employees have increasing and changing interests on a job level, a career developmental level, and on a private level which are often hard to unite.

12 The measurement tool Domain-independent operationalization. Nominally indentical versions for employee and supervisor (360 degree feedback methodology).

13 NATIONAL CULTURE (including employment opportunities) PREDICTOR VARIABLES Individual factors Human Capital Factors Training & Development Health Work-home Conflict Career Involvement Flow Job-related factors Career History Learning Value Organizational factors Structural Factors Learning Climate Leader-Member exch. Mentoring Networking Age-related HRM Policy Career potential or employability Occupational Expertise Anticipation & Optimisation Personal Flexibility Corporate Sense Balance MEDIATORS DEPENDENTS Career success Objective career success Promotions Income General subjective career success

14 Stereotypes by Supervisors about Older Workers Performance decreases Ambitions decrease Flexibility decreases Creativity decreases Older workers are more expensive Older workers are frustrated Innovative capacity decreases