Effective age management should not be reserved for workers on boards of directors, or in powerful positions, or employed in specific industries. Age should be universally viewed as a positive value and as synonymous with knowledge and competences, which older workers can share, to the benefit of the entire company and in order to avoid a knowledge gap when they retire.
Despite the prevalence of stereotypes with regard to the poor training potential of older workers and the fact that they are discriminated against in terms of access to training programmes, education and training initiatives designed to enhance the professional skills and employability of senior workers are the most commonly implemented age management practices strategies. Lifelong learning is in fact the key strategy required to promote the employment of seniors, given the ample evidence that higher levels of education lead to lower unemployment rates for older workers.
In particular, educational interventions for older workers may be required in technical areas, including computer and language skills, and in commercial competencies. “Continuing training could offer a solution to the problem, especially if targeted to the acquisition of transferable human capital and not just company specific” (Contini et al., 2007).
In this regard, we put forward the experience of an Italian integrated energy company, Eni, that has completely changed its perspective on age management measures, inaugurating a policy of knowledge management, recognition and professional development aimed specifically at non-managerial staff members who possess valuable know-how acquired over time.
The added value of this experience is that not only have older workers been involved in this knowledge sharing and training project, but they play a key role in it, acting as guides and coaches for other employees.
Eni has operations in 79 countries with more than 80,000 employees worldwide and is strongly committed to promoting the wellbeing and development of its staff. Eni operates in the oil and gas, electricity generation and sale, petrochemicals, oilfield services, construction and engineering industries, holding a strong international market position.
Given a backdrop of demographic change and new competency requirements affecting the European gas sector, in 2007 Eni identified five critical knowledge areas that needed to be strengthened and internally shared. These critical areas related to:
(1) market knowledge, market peculiarities and critical processes;
(2) commercial skills, sales management and improvement of product offering;
(3) economics and finance, financial markets, commodity market dynamics and competition;
(4) organisation, organisational integration and communication flows; and
(5) cost management, business control and cost attribution.
To encourage experienced staff possessing the appropriate know-how, the company developed and launched the “Knowledge Owner” project. The aim of the project was to meet the challenges of demographic change, by enhancing skills in the gas sector and increasing the value of employees holding significant levels of key knowledge.
The criteria for identifying the participants in the project were: possession of key know-how relevant to supporting the company’s strategic business targets; possession of excellent skills and internally- and externally-recognised professional authority; possession of knowledge requiring long-term development and not easily replaced on either internal or external labour markets; workers over 40 years old with highly-skilled, non-managerial profiles.
Having identified the project targets within the working population, these workers were formally given the professional title of “Knowledge Owner” in 2008. The award was assigned to approximately 200 workers with an average age of about 51 years, within a range of 50 to 55 years. More than two-thirds are middle managers, the majority with an industrial professional background in the fields of engineering, process technology, construction and geology. These sectors are characterized by specialized skills and knowledge acquired after several years of experience, and for this reason these workers would be difficult to replace.
The purpose of identifying these strategic and valued workers was to promote initiatives for the dissemination of corporate knowledge through activities such as mentoring for young people, development of knowledge and professional expertise and teaching activities at Eni Corporate University, an Eni company specialised in recruitment, selection, training and knowledge management. In order to reach these goals, in 2009 the company set about enhancing the experience and know-how of the “Knowledge Owners” by means of training programmes and specific initiatives to prepare the nominated senior workers to become teachers and members of the Eni “faculty”. Coaching and training initiatives were carried out on general topics such as knowledge transfer and development and age management principles. In turn, the “Knowledge Owners” conducted general or business/profession specific workshops targeted at other employees, and were assigned the roles of mentor or facilitator.
In order to raise the visibility of these knowledge areas and create a knowledge-sharing community, in 2010 Eni created a dedicated intranet site for the “Knowledge Owners”, providing access and interaction opportunities to all employees.
Given that older workers are unique human and intellectual assets for any organisation, it would be useful to rethink their role, assigning them teaching and training roles aimed at supporting those who are at the beginning of their careers. The
HRM practices for an ageing Italian workforce
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