Old people now have their honor
German firms increasingly value older employees
Klaus Ulrich, Andrey Gurkov, Deutsche WelleThe era of early retirement in Germany is coming to an end, aging and population decline are forcing companies to pay increased attention to lifelong staff training and career guidance for those over 45.
The German state-owned railway company Deutsche Bahn currently employs over 190 thousand people. Almost half of them are over 50 years old. This means that the former state monopolist will face mass retirement of his employees in the foreseeable future.
HR specialists have a high opinion of elderly employeesIn such a situation, one of the key tasks of the company in the field of personnel policy becomes purposeful work with a core of experienced employees: they must preserve not only their physical performance, but also their professional qualifications for as long as possible.
"And here lifelong learning becomes very important," Sigrid Heudorf, who is responsible for social issues at Deutsche Bahn, emphasizes in an interview with DW.
The railway giant is far from the only large German company that is ready to actively engage in advanced training of older workers. Christina Anger, a researcher at the Institute of German Economics in Cologne (IW), was convinced of this. She conducted a survey among the heads of human resources departments of a number of German concerns.
"At the same time, it turned out that enterprises have a very high opinion of their older workers and their labor productivity," the expert says. Thus, only 8 percent of the personnel officers surveyed agreed with the statement that such employees work with less desire and, accordingly, less efficiently.
The era of early pensions is endingHowever, those who are older, while much less willing than young people, agree to participate in advanced training courses, Sigrid Hoidorf from Deutsche Bahn shares his observations.
Therefore, the company's management, together with the trade unions, is now specially developing educational events addressed specifically to the older age category.
According to Hoidorf, the restrained attitude of older employees to professional development until recently was largely due to various opportunities to switch to a part-time schedule or even retire early. With such a prospect, it didn't make much sense to master something new.
However, due to the deteriorating demographic situation in Germany, German firms have become much less likely to allow their employees to leave prematurely for a well-deserved rest. "In recent years, the Deutsche Bahn concern has turned from a company that reduces staff during rehabilitation into an enterprise that recruits new employees," explains the HR manager. "We need to take care of the task of retaining older workers for as long as possible."
Lifelong learning is part of the corporate cultureThe Daimler car-building company, which employs almost 170 thousand people in Germany, is also concerned about this task.
Here they rely on wellness activities, workplace ergonomics, and lifelong learning, company spokeswoman Svenja Wilke told the Press service.
As an example, she cites a project at the Daimler plant in Bremen, where since 2008 they have been retraining older workers engaged directly in the assembly of cars. They are offered to master the specialty of a caretaker technician, which opens up new professional prospects and at the same time reduces physical activity.
"We consider lifelong learning to be part of our corporate culture," Gudrun Kolbe, Human Resources Manager at BASF Chemical Concern, notes in an interview with DW. The experience of working in a globally operating company with more than 100,000 employees convinced her that the willingness and ability to learn with age are not related in any way: "Those employees who have consistently improved their qualifications throughout their entire work history can easily cope with their studies even in old age."
BASF, however, believes that different age categories should be offered different teaching methods. "Our trainings and advanced training courses are conducted taking into account the age of the participants," emphasizes Gudrun Kolbe.
Joint courses for employees of different agesA different approach is in the multidisciplinary company Robert Bosch, which is, in particular, the world's largest supplier of components for the automotive industry.
Here, too, purposefully promote lifelong learning of employees, of whom there are about 285 thousand worldwide. But they do not consciously make any age differences at the same time.
"We believe that we improve the quality of training when we mix representatives of different age categories in training groups and at the same time purposefully reveal the strengths of both young and older employees," Ingeborg Pauli, a teacher at the Bosch Training Center corporate training Center, shares the secret of success.
Kristina Unger also speaks in favor of mixed groups, based on a recent study by the Institute of German Economics. So, it is better to train older employees to work with new technology together with young employees who help colleagues master it – first during a seminar, and then directly at the workplace.
Career guidance for those over 45Mixed groups also play an important role in the educational concept of the German company Festo, one of the world leaders in the field of production automation with more than 13 thousand employees in almost 100 countries.
However, there are also special seminars for older workers. One of them is titled as follows: "Professional and life goals of the last decade of labor."
"We provide the seminar participants with the opportunity to discuss personal plans during individual conversations with the coach and, in accordance with these wishes, determine possible prospects for the last working years," Boris Wörter, head of the HR Department (human resources) at Festo, said in an interview with DW.
Similar work is being done at BASF, but the target group here is somewhat younger: similar seminars are already being offered to those who have turned 45. "These people have worked for an average of 25 years, and they still have 20 years of work ahead of them. They often ask questions: what is my professional future, what can I change, how can I develop further?" – explains the teacher of the training center of the chemical giant Petra Jan-Stahnecker (Petra Jahn-Stahnecker).
Thus, lifelong learning in German companies means not only regular professional development of employees, but also their regular career guidance.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru12.07.2012