Goldenworkers – ICT for promoting active ageing at work

GOLDENWORKERS

Emerging technologies, new models of extending professional active life and novel application scenarios in the area of ICT for active ageing at work

2012 has been designated by the European Commission as the “European Year for Active Ageing and Solidarity between Generations”. Active ageing includes creating more opportunities for older people to continue working and to keep contributing to society through volunteering, however, these ambitions need to be supported by a wide range of policies at all levels of governance.

The main goal of the EU project “Goldenworkers” is to identify emerging technologies and socio-economic trends, new models of extending professional active life and novel application scenarios in the area of ICT for active ageing at work, leading to the definition of a beyond of the state-of-the-art research agenda, fully embraced by research and practice community.

Co-financed by the European 7th Framework Programme, GOLDENWORKERS aims to build a roadmap for ICT adoption in the field of active ageing at work; the project has three main objectives:

• Towards the research community: To define research directions in the field of ICT for active ageing at work

• Towards companies and public services organizations: To define an action plan going forward to adapt companies and society to the new demographic, economic and social reality

• Towards policy makers: To provide recommendations on policy and public service design to integrate ageing workers into society through the innovative use of ICT

EXPRESS YOUR VIEW!

GoldenWorkers is a collaborative project which needs the widest range of input. For this reason, we open up the main deliverables to your feedback.

The first key deliverable “Needs and trends of ICT for ageing at work” is now available: its purpose is to provide a state of play on the fundamental trends affecting ICT for ageing at work. Please read about it in the project website in the page dedicated to consultations.

For more information on the project, please visit the website at: www.goldenworkers.orgor write to Ilenia.gheno@age-platform.eu

You can follow the Goldenwokers project also by joining the Twitter page, the LinkedIN, theblog and the ePractice website.

The project has started in October 2011 and will end in December 2012.

Project No. 288124

Project Coordinator and Consortium: IESE Business School – Universidad de Navarra

Latest news on the project:

Goldenworkers 2nd Workshop: Towards a Road Map on ICT for Employment in Old Age, 25 June, Brussels​

Goldenworkers – Ageing at Work:

2^nd Workshop: Towards a Road Map on ICT for Employment in Old Age

The project has already delivered a comprehensive state of the art analysis of the overview ofageing at work & ICT with the purpose of providing a detailed review of the different perspectives (social, economic, technological) of this phenomenon. Future scenarios, developed by Goldenworkers and discussed by the project Group of experts and other relevant stakeholders, have highlighted many possibilities and challenge around the research on ICT for employment.

During this 2^nd workshop an overview of the state of the art and a presentation of the different scenarios elaborated have been presented. Besides, the discussion around other key issues, namely age management, flexicurity and gap analysis have been boosted to allow the Goldenworkers Consortium to deliver a comprehensive and thorough road map for ICT for Ageing at Work.

The goal of the workshop was twofold:

• on the one hand side, it has been conceived to inform and raise awareness on the priorities and unmet needs arisen from the social, economical, political and cultural perspectives related to the deployment of new technologies applied to employment in older age;

• on the other hand, its panel sessions aimed at stimulating the discussion for focusing on the threads and potentials around this topic, whose relevance for our ageing societies and economies is clear, possibly drawing political and technical indications that a road map must take into account.

AGE Platform Europe chaired the panel session dedicated to ICT and Flexicurity: For the Full Recognition of Everyone’s Added Value, where Maciej Kucharczyk provided a speech, together with Francesco Briganti (AEIP), Marina Montironi (Ernst & Young) and Jacques Spelkens (GDF Suez).

The event will took place on June 25^th at the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) in Brussels: please click here to access the Programme, the background paper. For any information or question, do not hesitate to contact ilenia.gheno@age-platform.eu.

1^st Workshop on visionary scenarios

Hosted by Ernst & Young in Berlin, the project organised its first open workshop on March 15^th, 2012. With the aim of exploring the different scenarios for ageing at work and the enabling role of ICT, the Goldenworkers consortium gathered its Scientific Committee’s experts and international stakeholders (e.g. the Eurofound – the European Foundation for Improving the living and working conditions, the AAL – Ambient Assisted Living Joint Programme and the EURES network), engaging them in fruitful discussions trying to merge the current state of the art on technology and policies for ageing at work with the future trends on both sides, in an attempt to ease the gap analysis’ task, where the project will focus in the next 3 months.

Last but not least, there is a new tool available for implementing some brainstorming activities and commenting: the Apps for Ageing at Work is an informal on-line place where you can add any kind of ideas about new technologies related to the employment as we age. The successful integration of older workers provide a fundamental opportunity for increasing productivity of companies, and achieve a happier quality of life. ICT solutions and apps can help the integration of older workers, by augmenting their capacity, exploiting their unique strengths and overcoming their challenges.
Through the Apps for Ageing at Work web link, we’d like to collect ideas for new ICT based services, apps and solutions that could help older workers better carry out their work.

For more information, please contact ilenia.gheno@age-platform.eu

Towards the Roadmap of ICT for Employment in Old Age: the 3rd Goldenworkers workshop.

Hosted by the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) in Brussels on June 25^th, the Goldenworkers project has organised a dissemination workshop aimed at advancing on a state-of-the-art research agenda for ICT and employment, fully embraced by research and practice communities, and at presenting the state of the art and at calling for inputs regarding the upcoming challenges it is currently dealing with, namely the analysis of the gaps between current and future IT devoted to the employment in old age.

Co-organized by AGE Platform Europe, different specialized experts, representatives from the European Union, social institutions, companies and researchers with different backgrounds gathered to discuss and share the different findings that Goldenworkers has been identifying.

Introduced by Mr. Verboven Xavier, Co-president of the Co-ordination Group of the EESC activities during the European Year 2012, who stressed that “we should reinforce all activities oriented to add more participation from older people. This has to be embraced not only by the social security systems but also from the enterprises, its humans resources departments and mostly important by the managers and CEOs in charge of the older group staff members, they should contribute to the knowledge transitions before we miss all this background, experience and professionalism”, the workshop’s structure foresaw 3 panel session.

On the first panel session dedicated to ICT and Age Management, highlighted how “a well active ageing management and proactive solutions will definitely help the Europe’s skills shortage”, as Geert Van Droogenbroeck from Adecco Belgium explained, without forgetting about the intergenerational challenges, as Richard Donkin, independent writer and journalist from United Kingdom, mentioned:”it will be a collaboration issue between generations, and where younger’ ones will gain more about the interpretation of the ICT by the older users”.

The second panel session focused on “ICT and Flexicurity: For the Full Recognition of Everyone’s Added Value”, added other important insights. The Managing Director of AGE, Maciej Kucharczyk, highlighted the relevance of engaging all different actors, from decision makers to individual workers, including all levels, from the local to the European one, while Jacques Spelkens, from GDF Suez, gave his reflections building on the role of education and training, especially when dealing with constantly renewing technologies, as the knowledge evolves very rapidly and a special attention must be paid to the workers aged 40 plus.

The final third session on “Current and Future Trends on ICT: Raising Awareness on the Gap, Building the Future” pointed out a the lack of understanding of users’ needs by ICT designers, more specifically empathy for the users problems and expectations that can only be fostered in a close contact with them, as Fabio Casati from University of Trento acknowledged.

All the work by the Goldenworkers consortium has brought the possibility to search on different scenarios on ICT, expert’s visions on future trends, and the users’ and enterprises’ perspective on age management, which has been introduced to the EU level.

For more information on the workshop and the project, please get in touch withilenia.gheno@age-platform.eu and visit www.goldenworkers.org.

Help us writing the Goldenworkers Roadmap!

We are calling on everyone to evaluate the Roadmap developed so far in order to provide an overview of ageing at work in the future and how information and communication technology will shape this.

We are more than pleased to invite you to read our Roadmap (choosing either the full version or the executive summary) and provide your invaluable contribution via the on-line questionnaire.

Please click on the following link to the Goldenworkers survey:https://www.goldenworkers.org/

Please complete the survey no later than November the 30^th. It will take no more than 10 minutes.

Your feedback is really important for us and is meant to help us revise and update the Roadmap, while collecting ideas to define the action plan meant to close the key gaps in this domain.

Thank you for your contribution!