4 essential factors for an effective sustainable employability policy

Sustainable employability policy factors

Sustainable employability is a very broad concept. It encompasses, among other things, the physical and mental health of employees, their vitality and zest for life, their knowledge and skills, talents, and mindset. Both the government (through subsidies) and companies recognize the necessity and importance of developing policies around sustainable employability, but above all of putting them into practice.
Health, education, and mobility are important themes in the context of sustainable employability.

Also because people are getting older and they will work longer, it is very important to use this policy preventively. Statistics still show that people over 50 who become unemployed find it difficult to find a new job and that costs society a lot of money. By paying preventive attention to the vitality and health but also to the employability of the entire working nation, much unnecessary suffering and associated costs can be avoided.

How to pay attention to sustainable employability

An important aspect within a sustainable employability policy is a proactive and preventive policy, says Talitha Rijken (Advisor Sustainable Employability at Simple Check).

Rapid economic and social changes make working on sustainable employability of employees increasingly important. The ultimate goal of sustainable employability is: employees who contribute to the performance of the organization and derive added value from it themselves. This requires a lot of attention to psychosocial workload (PSA), stress and work pressure, vitality, safety and mobility. Clear themes, but the policy one can develop on these is not always easy. What measures do you take against PSA? And how do you make work-related stress recognizable and discussable?

Measures against PSA

Regarding measures against PSA and making work stress negotiable, some useful steps are:

• Promote a healthy work environment: This includes physical safety, ergonomics, as well as mental well-being. Organizing workshops and training on stress management can contribute to this.
• Flexible working hours: Providing flexibility in working hours and workplace can reduce stress and help improve work-life balance.
• Deployment of confidants: It is valuable for employees to be able to discuss work pressure and psychosocial problems with confidants or company psychologists.
• Open culture: Create a work atmosphere where employees feel safe to bring up work stress. This often starts with leadership that shows openness and empathy.
• Regular check-ins: Conduct regular individual conversations in which workload and well-being can be discussed. HR or managers can schedule these conversations structurally.
• Training in stress signals: Teach managers and employees to recognize stress signals, both in themselves and in colleagues, so that early intervention can be taken.

Health Management

In order to remain employable throughout their careers, it is important that employees stay healthy and energetic. A distinction is made between general agreements at the industry/company level and agreements that directly affect the employee. In a broad prevention policy within labor organizations, sustainable employability consists of three elements: vitality, work ability, and employability.
1. Vitality means being energetic, resilient, fit, and able to work tirelessly with great perseverance.
2. Work ability is the extent to which a person is physically, mentally, and socially capable of working.
3. Employability is the ability to continue to perform various tasks and functions adequately, both now and in the future.

Apart from the fact that it is therefore important to make agreements on a proactive and preventive policy, to ensure that employees do not drop out, a more in-depth approach can be taken in the area of health management. This involves agreements and measures aimed at preventing dropout in the current position. And about agreements that go beyond the legal obligations!

4 Factors sustainable employability policies

1. Focus on healthy lifestyle
Employers can easily and affordably create a policy focused on health and vitality within the workplace to promote a healthy lifestyle. This often involves offering company fitness programs, for example, but fortunately, it can be much more targeted and personalized.

2. Understanding workload
Workload often plays the most important role in the development of stress and burnout. In particular, the following elements:
a. heavy emotional demands; work that requires too much energy;
b. lack of support; inability to collaborate with others;
c. lack of satisfaction; not seeing that your work is useful, not enjoying the results;
d. work that disrupts your private life;
e. work pressure: too much or too difficult work for the time available, so that it is never finished and never good enough.

3. Proper work-life balance

Dropout can also be prevented, for example, by paying targeted attention to the work-life balance. It is quite possible to provide guidance and support in this area as well, thus contributing to an employee's sustainable employability. In this way, HRM creates a vitality policy that ensures a policy towards health that goes beyond the focus on the job.

4. Training and personal development

In order to remain employable within one's own function, (but also on the labor market as a whole), training throughout one's career is important. In this way, employees keep abreast of developments in their professional field and can (further) develop their competencies. A distinction is made between general training agreements at the industry or company level and training agreements focused on the individual employee.

The possibilities at the employee level do not only concern the career interview, the performance interview, job-oriented training. This can also be a development path through the use of a coach. For example, an employee's personal development path will increase the employee's overall employability. This is both function-oriented and will have a broader character. Think of the contribution this makes to, for example, the functioning of and within a team. In addition, personal development offers an important contribution in the area of mobility.

Tools sustainable employability

Simple Check works with various validated (by TNO developed) instruments, to enter into dialogue on sustainable employability at the level of employer and employee. For example:

1. Preventive Medical Examination (PMO) 
   Simple Check specializes in conducting Preventive Medical Examinations. We do this within 20 minutes per employee, at a location of your choice, using our Health Check bus.
2. Healthy Living Scan. This Healthy Living Scan provides insight into the employee's lifestyle and attitude. The scan covers the following areas:
   lifestyle behavior, attitude and culture, and advice.
3. Sustainable Employability Index (DIX).; this is an instrument that gives employees insight into their Health & Energy, Professional Knowledge & Skills, Motivation & Engagement and Work-Private Balance. In addition, the DIX encourages employees to actively work on their own areas of concern.
4. PSA; this questionnaire provides insight into how psychosocial workload is recognized, can be reduced or prevented. It looks at: work pressure, burn-out symptoms, undesirable behavior, support from supervisors, support from colleagues, culture and work climate and autonomy.
5. KOBA-DI tool. This tool provides financial insight into what sustainable employability can bring to a company in terms of productivity, leading to greater and more effective investment in the sustainable employability of employees.

All this is supported digitally. In a specially developed portal, all employees gain insight into their physical and mental health via a highly secure and personal health dashboard. This 'sustainable employability portal' offers the employee the opportunity to work specifically and motivated on a healthy lifestyle and offers the employer and/or HRM the possibility to facilitate this through customized or delivered content aimed at sustainable employability.

Want to know more about where Simple Check can support or guide for an effective policy around sustainable employability? Feel free to contact us without any obligation!