Sustainable employability

Sustainable employability is an important tool to guarantee long term employment. And as with so many things, you have to get started early on. When you start focussing on your sustainable employability when you are in your fifties, you are a little late. If you want to stimulate labour participation in people over 50, you should start laying a foundation when they are between 30 and 50. Your policy has to start now!

Relation with employability

The terms ‘employability’ and ‘sustainable employability’ are of course related, one cannot exist without the other. Perhaps they look like synonyms, but their effects differ. In sustainable employability the focus is on health and vitality, while a career plan with a focus on employability is aimed at the later stages in a career path. How do you maintain your mentality, health and inspiration? How do you make sure you can keep adding value when you reach a different phase in your life?

Policy in your organisation

Embedding policy focussed on sustainable employability could be seen as an extension of a current employability program with activities relating to health and vitality. The best approach of such a policy always depends on the context of a situation. Blue collar jobs require a different approach than highly trained office workers. Key features are:

– Health and safety policy
– Career development

What are the advantages?

The return on sustainable employability for a company lies in a decrease in sickness absence and an increase in productivity. Your employees will become healthier and more active. You will see a decrease in the outflow of employees towards WIA (statutory incapacity for work benefit) and other undesirable outflow. And this has a large financial benefit.

Responsibilities for employees

An organisation can lay the foundations for sustainable employability but employees’ individual responsibility is just as important. A healthy lifestyle, exercise, not smoking and a balanced psyche are equally important. An employee as a personal interest here. You would like to enjoy your old age. The organisation can help with awareness and other activities focussed on the stimulation of people’s own responsibility.

How can we help you?

We can help you with research, policy development, Vitality Scans, workshops and training for managers. We are happy to be your sounding board without any strings attached.