In the framework of implementing the LearnGen project activities Eurotraining Educational Organisation organised an event in order to proceed the pilot testing of the training material. It took place face-to-face on the 14th and 18th of October 2021 in Athens, Greece. The event was held at the headquarters of EUROTraining Educational Organization with twenty-one participants. More specifically, there were eight vet professionals, seven business managers and six HR specialists. All these professionals are very active and experienced in their field and always aspire to improve their skills and competencies. All participants showed great interest and were eager to participate actively in both workshops. The duration of each workshop was 3 hours, from 2 pm to 5 pm on both days.

Main target of the workshops was to ensure the interaction among the participants. To enhance this aspect during the event were utilized presentations and videos while all participants had the opportunity to complement their knowledge and be involved in group activities. In addition, each workshop included a Q&A session, which encouraged the discussion and the exchange of diverse options, experiences and best practices.

All participants seemed to understand the main concepts presented while they also had the opportunity to reflect on their real intergenerational learning needs at the workplace throughout the workshop. Although the first part of the workshop was more introductory for the participants and also focused on theoretical aspects, the second part was devoted to development of skills participants will need in order to actually benefit from the training and implement intergenerational learning in their everyday work life.

Proof of the workshops’ success was that most participants also expressed their wish to participate in similar trainings in the future and showed great interest in the project’s activities. 

There are obvious benefits from mentoring at schools for all stakeholders – for both adults and young professionals, but also for the school administration.

Young teachers obtain knowledge and develop their practical skills. Guided by experienced mentors, they design their own professional careers and learn to have effective communication with school students. On the other hand, the mentors develop their own professional skills by communicating with their younger colleagues.

In the digital world the mentoring process also takes the opposite direction. The younger teachers, being savvy in technologies, often become mentors for their older colleagues. They guide them how to digitalize the educational content, offering at the same time new approach to the school topics.

Indisputable are also the benefits for the school administration. The mentoring process increase the culture and professional level of the pedagogical staff, the interrelations in the school improve. As a result – better educational quality.

More about the mentoring in the teachers’ profession you can read in the annual scientific-theoretical journal “Pedagogical News” of the Ruse University – http://pedagogicnews.uni-ruse.bg.

Authors: BRCCI, Bulgaria

August 2021

In recent years, reverse mentoring and intergenerational learning seem to have a great impact on the contemporary workplace. According to research conducted by the University of Szczecin, in Western Poland, the efficacy of reverse mentoring depends on the level of engagement in the mentor/mentee relation and the level of organisational support – engagement of the officers, supportive organisational culture and atmosphere conductive to cooperation. Reverse mentoring can provide corporate leaders with valuable generational and cultural perspective, and foster inclusivity by bridging the gap between populations diverse in age, ethnicity, culture and gender. This way, organisations have the opportunity to benefit from truly diverse teams at the workplace fostering understanding and exchange of experiences. 

The proactive management of equality, diversity and inclusion are increasingly important to the culture of a company and how it operates today. Many organisations are striving to break down barriers, promote inclusivity and look at ways to retain existing employees. When we consider it, the term “generation gap” has never been more relevant than it is today with up to five generations working side by side – from the baby boomers born between the mid-1940s and the mid-1960s to Generation Z, who were born after 1995.

Today’s workforce challenges management with a wide ranging life experience and age gap to plug, not least because technology has changed the working environment so much since the baby boomers entered the labour market initially. Reverse Mentoring, a concept first made popular in the 1990’s, is a possible solution to bridge the age and generational gap within the workforce.

Reserve or reciprocal mentoring was initially a way to close the skills gap and introduce new technology to senior managers using a basic mentor partnership but reversed. For example, a younger employee would ‘mentor’ an older, more senior employee. The senior employee, usually management, could then take on board the ideas and have the power to support implementation within the business. For the reverse mentoring relationship to work, it must have clear objectives and take place at fairly regular intervals; although the arrangement need not be too formal or rigid. Mentors and mentees should be at ease with the arrangement so they receive the most value from it. Like any form of mentoring, reverse mentoring in any organisation should be based on trust, confidentiality, mutual respect and sensitivity.

Reverse Mentoring is a bridge-building exercise between the generations where the conversation can range from integrating new digital communications tools to discussing what younger people believe the world of work should look like. “Reverse mentoring is a two-way street,” says Mary Harrison, chief executive of business training and support company, Optimum. “The results can be tangible and invaluable in helping today’s leaders to drive a stronger and more robust business and providing tomorrow’s leaders with an opportunity to experience a view from the top.”

Professor Karl Moore from the Desautels Faculty of Management at McGill University suggests some more subtle ways of reverse mentoring: ‘These include things like sending your mentee articles to read, suggestions of TED talks to watch, or things that struck you that you want to share with them. You might also want to set up a time to have coffee and discuss the material you sent them and how it might apply to the business.’

For more on the LearnGen Project, please visit us at www.learngen.eu

Author: Future in Perspective, Ireland

August 2021

We often experience or become aware of age bias.  Such biases exist in all facets of life, including work life.  For example, we may observe employers refusing to invest in the further development and training of employees of a certain age or employer who are reluctant to give work involving decision making to younger employees.  This type of bias leads to the alienation of a significant part of the workforce and their exclusion from learning and training opportunities aiming at increasing their efficiency and the productivity of their employers.

The ERASMUS + European project entitled τίτλο LearnGen: Intergenerational Mentoring and Learning in the Workplace deals with intergenerational learning as a significant tool for inclusion and interaction between younger people (aged between 18 and 30 years old) and older people (aged 50+) at the place of work.  Through the development of this project we aim to inform companies, managers and adult training educators about the benefits of including all employees in the workplace regardless of age to cultivate social cohesion and acceptance of intergenerational differences.

Intergenerational learning is defined as the way in which people of different generations can transfer knowledge to each other. When different generations work together to exchange views, impart knowledge and values, and develop skills through their interaction, it becomes an important aspect of lifelong learning that is significant to all people regardless of age. Through intergenerational learning, mutual understanding and the development of an educational relationship are promoted, while at the same time the generational gap phenomenon is reduced.

How can intergenerational learning be developed? An important way is deliberate and systematic guidance. Most of us are familiar with the concept of a Mentor at work who is usually a more experienced, frequently older person who takes care of a less experienced, often young person to teach him/her some things.  Equally important though is reverse mentoring where the younger person undertakes to teach some knowledge to an older colleague.  Young people, in addition to having the opportunity to learn from the knowledge and experiences of older people, also have a lot to teach respectively, mainly digital skills, technological challenges and literacy on social media.

The LearnGen project aims to develop training materials for organizations, employers and employees so that they can integrate mentoring into their training and human resource development programs and develop the necessary skills that the opposite generation can teach them.

For more articles on the subject of intergenerational learning and post updates about the LearnGen project you can follow us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/learngeneu/about/?ref=page_internal

What is ageism?

The term ageism was first used by the American psychiatrist Robert Butler in a 1968 Washington Post article in the context of segregated housing policy. In 1975, Butler in his book “Why Survive? Being Old in America “develops the term, and in 1979 “ageism” was first included in “The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language.” The original and perhaps most widespread definition of ageism speaks of a process of systematic stereotyping and discrimination of people for their age (Butler 1975). The term is sometimes described by the synonym “age discrimination”.

Let’s zoom in to Europe and the Czech republic. The concept of ageism is gradually entering the Czech professional dictionary too. The first attempt at a comprehensive presentation of the phenomenon of age discrimination in the Czech context is the work of Mgr. Lucie Vidovićová, Ph.D. (2005), who defined ageism as follows:

 “Ageism – Age Discrimination is an ideology based on a shared belief in the qualitative inequalities of the various stages of the human life cycle. It manifests itself through a process of systematic, symbolic and real stereotyping and discrimination of persons and groups on the basis of their chronological age and / or their affiliation to certain generations. “

Ageism in the workplace

Ageism – the stereotyping, prejudice and discrimination against people based on their age – is pervasive and experienced by both younger and older participants in the labour market. Many older workers face ageism when looking for new jobs, training opportunities and career development or are pushed to leave into early retirement in times of economic recession. Ageism in the labour market is prevalent and costly to businesses who do not make the most of the potential of their ageing workforce. At the individual level, ageism has been shown to negatively affect health and well-being and can reduce life expectancy by up to 7.5 years.

Ageism is costly for both employers and employees, and for societies at large. Recently PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) estimated that if member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) increased the employment rate of those aged over 55 to match that of New Zealand (where it is highest), this could boost total OECD GDP by around USD 3.5 trillion in the long run. (PwC 2018, p. 18.)

Labour market in Czech republic

Perceptions of chronological age play an important role in the labour market. A survey among Czech adults aged 18–80 in 2012 showed that among those who feel that their age is important during their working life (79 per cent of the sample in 2012) the vast majority feels that their age is a critical factor in being hired or dismissed, offered training, a promotion or when salary levels are being decided upon (see graph below).

  Zdroj: Vidovićová 2008: 169 (for 2003 & 2007); Survey Ageismus 2012 for data for 2012. Reprezentativní vzorek populace v České republice, věk 18 – 80 let.

World Health Organisation (WHO) call to action

WHO published a global report on ageism in March 2021. The report states that both older and younger adults are often disadvantaged in the workplace and access to specialized training and education decline significantly with age. Ageism against younger people manifests across many areas such as employment, health, housing and politics where younger people’s voices are often denied or dismissed.

The report notes that policies and laws that address ageism, educational activities that enhance empathy and dispel misconceptions, and intergenerational activities that reduce prejudice all help decrease ageism.

All countries and stakeholders are encouraged to use evidence-based strategies, improve data collection and research and work together to build a movement to change how we think, feel and act towards age and ageing, and to advance progress on the UN Decade of Healthy Ageing.

“Ageism towards younger and older people is prevalent, unrecognized, unchallenged and has far-reaching consequences for our economies and societies,” said Maria-Francesca Spatolisano, Assistant Secretary-General for Policy Coordination and Inter-Agency Affairs in the Department of Economic and Social Affairs. “Together, we can prevent this. Join the movement and combat ageism.” 

Author: Jana Kyriakou

Sources:

https://www.ageismus.cz/o-ageismu

https://unece.org/fileadmin/DAM/pau/age/Policy_briefs/ECE-WG1-30.pdf

https://www.who.int/news/item/18-03-2021-ageism-is-a-global-challenge-un

The first part of a large scientific study, named Intergenerational Family Businesses as a Stress Management Instrument for Entrepreneurs, has been published. It has been compiled by an international academic network created under the INTERGEN project.

The purpose of this publication is to describe the results of an international research under INTERGEN about some attitudes in the students to choose the idea of family business. This psychological background is upgraded with analyses of their business expectations.

The network INTERGEN was launched in 2018; initially it conducted researches among students of 12 universities from 6 countries. The studies’ focus was on entrepreneurial attitudes in intergenerational family businesses. In 2020 more academic centers from Asia and Europe joint the network.

After the pandemic begun, the network went on working by moving into the cyberspace. The first online meetings were accomplished with the participation of scientists from 22 academic institutions from 8 countries of 2 continents – Albania, Bulgaria, Iran, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia and Uzbekistan.

The network aims to improve the understanding of the role of intergenerational family business for the development of students as entrepreneurs.

The international study, published by Angel Kanchev University of Ruse, Bulgaria, one of the active members of the INTERGEN network, can be read in English and downloaded at http://www.intergen-theory.eu/results.html.