Engaging and motivating older workers
Lifelong learning covers the entire career spectrum from entering the workforce, staying in it, transitioning from one profession to another, and leaving the workforce altogether. With life expectancies increasing, people can remain active in the workforce well into later life. Yet, older workers face stigma and diminished opportunities. However, an inclusive, skills-for-all approach to lifelong learning can ensure that this valuable segment of the working population is not left behind.
Lifelong learning in a post-covid world
Lifelong learning systems play an important role in closing the skills acquisition gap brought into sharp focus by the global pandemic especially for vulnerable groups, which include older workers, displaced workers, marginalised workers, the unemployed and those in informal employment.
Indeed, the global health crisis has been both a disruptor and an accelerator with some sectors coming to a standstill (e.g., tourism, leisure, culture, etc.) while other segments have grown exponentially (e.g., most everything tech: biotech, streaming platforms, video conferencing, etc.).
The novel coronavirus has been the great leveller and uniter. Certain demographics and geographical zones have been hit harder than others. Technophiles and technophobes alike have been forced into digitally mediated interactions. Tech savvy digital natives have seized the opportunities provided by living and working online, while the vulnerable have been further marginalised. This has also been true of digital access with broadband reach and digital skills asymmetrically distributed across the globe.
Sustainable lifelong learning systems: the solution?
ETF studies show that building sustainable lifelong learning systems help bridge digital, social, economic, and geographical divides by making essential skills available to all. In order to do this, governments as well as the citizens they represent need to embrace change and make a paradigm shift.
Labour markets tend to be built for those between the ages of 25 and 45. Workers are inclined to seek secure, stable employment to see them through retirement. Yet, time and again studies show the future of work requires a flexible labour force that is constantly and consistently taking up new skills and shedding obsolete ones.
Learning does not stop with secondary school diplomas and university degrees. It remains relevant throughout one’s life; today, learning is the work. Career development systems need to be better equipped to support frequent professional transitions brought on by shifting landscapes.
To help young people enter the labour market quickly and avoid the costly long-term effects of scarring often experienced by NEETs (youth who are Not in Education, Employment or Training), resources tend to be concentrated on youth employment programmes. Older workers who would like to change career paths or older unemployed who would like to re-enter the workforce are rarely in the spotlight.
Access to training may be available, but psychological and structural barriers persist. People, including older workers, still believe the adage: you can’t teach an old dog new tricks and innovation is generally associated with youth and technology. Structural barriers include salaries and pensions. Older, more experienced workers cost more to hire, which increases the risks of and lowers incentives for hiring them. This, in turn, makes it harder for older workers to embark on uncertain career transitions. ETF labour market expert, Cristina Mereuta, agrees. In a recent interview she said,
Older workers are underrepresented and invisible. If we look at data on lifelong learning participation, we see there is a very low participation among older worker cohorts.
According to Mereuta, this phenomenon is due in part to attitudes in society as a whole, but also to the attitudes of the older workers themselves.
‘Something needs to be changed in individual mindsets,’ Mereuta declared, insisting that this shift does not solely involve ‘how the younger generation looks at the older generation but also how the older generation looks at their own opportunities and chances to adapt.’
For Mereuta, motivation amongst stakeholders at all levels from students and teachers to policy makers is key to creating educational systems that are inclusive by design. Flexibility is important as well. Mereuta argues that policy makers need to ‘cater to different kinds of learners and include non-learners’. She believes it is essential ‘to look beyond school performance and look at people’.
Recent work on lifelong Learning at the ETF
In a 24 January 2018 article entitled, Lifelong learning and the ageing workforce, Zaklina Hadzi-Zafirova describes the problems plaguing older workers in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. She writes:
Older job seekers face age-based discrimination or lack the confidence to re-skill or start their own business.
On 10 June 2021, the ETF held a LearningConnects session entitled, ‘Developing Career Guidance: Let’s Discuss!’ to launch the joint ETF-ILO report, Developing national career development support systems: pathways to enhance lifelong career guidance, career education and career development support for workers. The panel comprised the report’s authors: Florian Kadletz, Human Capital Development Expert, ETF; Pedro Moreno Da Fonseca, Technical Specialist on Lifelong Learning, ILO; and Raimo Vuorinen, Adjunct associate professor, Finnish Institute for Educational Research, University of Jyväskylä; Chair of the Board of International Centre for Career Development and Public Policies (ICCDPP).
In this session, the panel discussed how funding bodies and government policies need to take career development seriously and how career development services must accompany people throughout their working lives to meet the changing needs of societies undergoing profound transformations due to globalisation, climate change, migration, global health crises, and digitalisation.
Kadletz says he hopes the report's findings will spark deep policy dialogue among relevant stakeholders about integrating career development into lifelong learning strategies and lead to action that will help countries make a seamless transition to the new normal.
During the Q&A, a viewer asked why policy measures tend to privilege the young while neglecting older workers. Vuorinen acknowledged that while such disparities exist, they can be resolved:
Lifelong learning systems can pool resources to ensure that funding programmes involve youth, adults and the vulnerable.
According to Vuorinen, coordination issues also need to be solved. Career development systems need to adapt to local contexts and be linked to wider policy goals; they ought to be regarded as public and private services. Older workers must be part of the solution as this process forges ahead. A summary of the session, can be found here.
On 11 June 2021, a high-level LearningConnects session was held with Stefania Giannini, UNESCO’s Assistant-Director General for Education and Cesare Onestini, the ETF’s Director; they discussed the outlook for lifelong learning systems.
Giannini asserted that lifelong learning systems are indispensable for “building back better and greener” while Onestini insisted that lifelong learning “is the glue that will allow us to achieve all the policy goals” including the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with SDG 4 on education as the foundation.
The high-level LearningConnects session set the stage for the international conference on Lifelong Learning Systems: skills for green and inclusive societies in the digital era, held on 21-25 June 2021, and jointly organised by the ETF and UNESCO in collaboration with the EBRD, the ILO and UNICEF. The conference delved deeply into how to make lifelong learning possible. On 23 June 2021, a two-hour session, Skills for All, explored the building of inclusive lifelong learning systems that leave no one behind. According to the concept note, a ‘cohesive and fair digital and green transition means providing quality learning opportunities for everyone throughout their lives’.
The highlights of this session included a presentation by Marka Vukasinovic, Head of Unit, Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports in Montenegro where he provided an overview of the reforms Montenegro is implementing to build a more inclusive educational system that reaches remote and rural populations as well as adapting curriculum for adults returning to formal education.
Nadica Kostoska, the Assistant Head of Sector for the European Union at the Ministry of Education and Science in North Macedonia also gave an interesting presentation on her country’s efforts to use the pandemic to achieve excellence in VET. The reforms are notable for their tailored approach that take into account regional differences. This includes introducing greater flexibility in order to include the reskilling and upskilling of youth and adults in informal learning.
'The economy does better when everyone can contribute, the educational policy makers have the obligation to create the right conditions so that each citizen, young or adult, can achieve his or her potential’, declared Kostoska.
To watch the session, please see the video below:
Challenges ahead
When it comes to delivering inclusive education and employment opportunities, resource allocation remains a challenge for ETF partner countries, the EU neighbourhood region and central Asia. Not all countries in these areas have the same concerns. The workforce is heterogeneous in terms of demographics. Mereuta points out that ‘in Kosovo a significant number of young cohorts become active each year while in other countries, like Moldova, we see accelerated aging’. According to Mereuta,
'accelerated aging and emigration lead to workforce shortages. For this reason, it is important to invest in skills development for older workers'.
In a 2012 article for Vanity Fair, the storied economist, Joseph E. Stiglitz compared the Great Recession following the 2008 subprime crisis to the Great Depression of the 1930s when “we were moving from agriculture to manufacturing. Today we are moving from manufacturing to a service economy”. Both Giannini and Onestini noted that the economic and societal transformation taking place today, which includes the move to service-based economies as observed by Stiglitz nearly a decade ago, has been accelerated by the global pandemic. Efforts to shepherd our societies through these seismic shifts must include older workers.
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