The mission of SILVER project is to provide tools and learning resources for age-friendly workplaces for all sectors. SILVER project aims to create a coordinated response for the promotion of a career in the third age, that addresses a two-fold ambition: _From one side, managers, HR and other interested professionals are given awareness, strategies and learning tools to a structured way to contribute to career extension or preparation of retirement, enhancing their readiness to support older workers; _From another side, older workers themselves are aware of challenges of ageing and empowered for an active ageing within the workplace, either to keep working for longer or to support a smooth transition to retirement. EU faces a rise of labour force participation of older people: in 2018,32.8% of EU‑28 population had >55 years,being encouraged to remain longer. This pressures both employers & employees as to tackle together the situation & be prepared for a third age career and a pre-retirement stage (Ageing EU Report,2019). There are some strategies to keep older workers’ active, as flexibility of schedule, working at home, part-time, but there can be different approaches which promotes them to stay at office, balance smooth transition into retirement, their engagement and contribution to organisation,whilst promoting their active lifestyle & pre-retirement life - thus,increasing job satisfaction, a key enabling factor for extending working lives (2019 Ageing EU). SILVER specific objectives are to: _Identify promising practices & work methodologies on active ageing in the workplace,by sounding old people themselves and HR departments; _Raise awareness on organisations from different sectors (public, private, non-profit) about their practices & initiatives towards an age-friendly workplace and the improvements needed; _Promote self-awareness on older workers about their sense of preparation and acceptance for retirement; _Create an active learning programme, which respond to the needs of organisations and their HR staff in implementing an age-friendly workplace; _Design and develop a toolbox to promote a career in the third age for older workers, within organisations from different sectors (public, private, non-profit), based on previous findings. SILVER project will carry out 4 intellectual outputs with the work and effort of 7 partners from 7 different countries: O1_Examining the field by inspiring practices and storytelling: a collection of desk and field-based-research with 35 inspiring practices, 50 stories of retired older people, and 35 interviews of managers and HR, to analyse the perspective of end-users, make awareness on the topic and provide recommendations; O2_ Self-assessment Tool on Active Ageing in the Workplace delivered online, on 2 sides: a) awareness of organisations and their use of active ageing policies in the workplace, their preparation for retirement both for their older workers and for their teams; b) consciousness of older workers on their acceptance and preparedness for retirement; the tool will be tested with 140 managers or HR and 140 older workers (50+); O3_Ageing, working and living - New training workplace for the valorisation of third age workers: development of a training course for 112 managers and HR staff. It will use experiential learning as a method of teaching, with 21 learning materials for a blended training; O4_ Toolbox to promote a career in the third age: the use of design thinking to create a model of psychoeducational intervention with 21 tools and tested with 35 older workers engaged in workshops delivered by partners. SILVER seeks for more age-friendly workplaces and more older workers with increased job-satisfaction, raising awareness on employers and employees and increasing the ability of managers and HR staff to implement tailor-made measures.
Specific objectives were: 1. To Identify inspiring practices & work methodologies on active ageing in the workplace we did this by capturing 53 stories from older workers themselves about their experiences through semi structured interviews. 2. Raise awareness on organisations from different sectors (public, private, non-profit) about their practices & initiatives towards an age-friendly workplace and the improvements needed. This was primarily done through the desk-based research conducted as part of IO1 as each of the partners collected 3 best practice examples from their country around the topic 3. Promote self-awareness on older workers about their sense of preparation and acceptance for retirement. This was done through the remaining IOs. Within IO2 the partnership developed a self-assessment tool for older workers looking towards retirement and for HR to help the understand the knowledge and resources that they may need to improve in order provide high quality support and guidance for older workers moving towards a smooth transition to retirement or work options within their third age. The partnership piloted these self-assessment tools targeting 20 people for each target group, and then used the results of the pilots in order to develop IO3 training modules for HR managers and IO4 toolkit for older workers. The partnership used IO2 findings to identify the most common topics which the participants needed more information/training on. The mission of the SILVER project was to provide tools and learning resources for age-friendly workplaces for all sectors we created a coordinated response for the promotion of a career in the third age, that addresses the needs of 2 linked but distinct target groups: Managers/HR and other interested professional; and older workers themselves. As a result of developing this coordinated response we have supported the development and creation of age friendly workplaces across the partner countries. _
Demographic statistics demonstrate that the average age of populations across the EU is getting older. As a a result of this increase in age of EU countries face labour market and economic issues. As people are living longer both businesses and governments need to ensure that older workers people over 50 are (a) encouraged to stay in work longer, and (b) make a smooth transition into retirement including adequate financial planning to alleviate the pressure on public sector services and develop sustainable economies. In 2019 the Ageing EU Report concluded that to tackle the labour market and social issues that an ageing population and the need for a third age career there needs to be a two-pronged linked approach which engages both employers and employees. People worldwide are living longer. Today most people can expect to live into their sixties and beyond. Every country in the world is experiencing growth in both the size and the proportion of older persons in the population. At same time, EU faces challenges on promoting older people’s rights and respecting their added value in a ‘silver economy’, and should begin to focus the interventions on ageing also on the anticipation of the third age (AGE Platform 2015).This is the approach and methodology that the Silver project has adopted in the creation of the final products (IOs). At the time of writing there were some strategies to keep older workers’ active, including flexibility of working schedule, working at home, part-time, but there can be different approaches however it was felt by the partnership that there was a need to develop and promote the concept of an “Age Friendly Workplace” across the partnership in order to address workplace inequality in relation This was a key concept within the programme and one which we found was new and innovative in many of the partner countries. As part of the development of IO3 the partnership and defined what was meant by the term “Age friendly workplace”, This definition was a workplace which emphasises mutual respect and inclusion at work and provides comprehensive support for employees of all ages by utilising a combination of policies, procedures, settings and/or structures to remove barriers that segregate by age groups and to encourage participation of all employees regardless of their age. This definition was integral to the project results as the other tools, resources and training modules both for employers and employees were designed with it as the over arching aim. Other topics which were integral to the final products which were developed facilitating a smooth transition to retirement for older workers from both an employer and employee perspective; promoting an active lifestyle in retirement, and promoting different career options to extend the working lives of people across the EU. The project adopted informal and non-formal learning methodologies as it was deemed that they were the most effective pedagogical strategies to bring about attitudinal and societal changes. Further to this the project focussed its training with employers and employees and in a workplace setting in order to maximise key to address societal challenges. One of the key reasons why the partnership applied for the project in the first place was to effect positive change with adult learners (including both employers/business leaders and older workers themselves) in relation to supporting older workers towards a smooth transition in the workplace and being active in the workplace for longer. For us to meet these aims it was important that we created tools, training and resources which not only provided participants with new skills, tools and approaches to the topic, but also effected positive change in relation to their attitude to creating age friendly workplaces and active ageing and active ageing practices. Partners applied for the project as they are all committed to EU values and principles and saw a need to develop common solutions to common issues facing different EU states. The transnational element to the project was of paramount importance as it allowed the intercultural sharing of attitudes to older people and the workplace where different countries could learn from one another. Being EU issue, considering not only ageing, but also EU values & principles of participation of older adults in society, and especially the open mobility of workers between member states, Prior to the application being submitted partner countries did a needs analysis in relation to the topics this found that on the UK (MEH, applicant) ageism was common place within the workplace with regards older workers with only 58% workplaces having and equal opportunities policy explicitly mentioning age. It also showed a lack of evidence, guidance & practices which create age-friendly employers; this trend was the same in France (AFEJI) with no dedicated HR policies for employees, and a lack of specialist tools within HR departments. In Denmark, en3k, identified the need for more counselling, and guidance. Finally in Portugal (Aproximar), Slovenia (CIK) and Greece (KMOP),there are few initiatives to tackle age management. Throughout the partnership it was discovered that there was a small number of workshops to promote retirement planning and these wholly focussed on the employee rather than workshops for HR managers and Business leaders. Therefore, we discovered the need to develop training resources and strategies for HR managers to effectively manage older employees and to develop and deploy innovative solutions to maintain older people's working. SILVER aimed to create a coordinated response for the promotion of a career in the third age, from the perspective of both older workers and HR managers and Business Leaders