Sustainable Employability (SE)

Sustainable Employability (SE): History

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Subjects: Health Care Sciences & Services

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Employability should concern not only competence development but also the actual possibility and ability to use those competencies to create concrete personally valuable work opportunities, promoting workers’ wellbeing. This way of thinking takes shape in the concept of sustainable employability (SE).

sustainable employability
interventions
health

1. Introduction

Over the last years, retaining aging employees at work as long as possible while simultaneously maintaining their vitality and productivity has become crucial for employers, social partners, and governments [1]. The COVID-19 outbreak around the world has significantly increased challenges related to, among others, employment stability and (psychological and physical) health and safety [2]. The coronavirus pandemic has also caused a shock to people’s careers, highlighting the importance of building employability competencies and resilience appropriate to each career stage [3]. In this emerging adaptive and complex world of work, a new way of thinking about employability is needed now more than ever. Employability should concern not only competence development but also the actual possibility and ability to use those competencies to create concrete personally valuable work opportunities, promoting workers’ wellbeing. This way of thinking takes shape in the concept of sustainable employability (SE). According to van der Klink et al. [4], the presence of resources, work-related (e.g., work demands and task structure) and personal (e.g., personal capacity, abilities, health, and education), as well as those of more general contextual and normative conditions (e.g., social context, legislation), lead to a set of capabilities that result in concrete personally valuable work opportunities. The achievement of such opportunities throughout one’s working life is precisely what sustainable employability means, according to van der Klink et al. [4]. In this process, personal (e.g., motivation and attitude to acquire new skills) and work (e.g., Human Resources Management policy [HRM]) conversion factors need to be present to convert work and personal resources into exploitable capabilities or opportunities. Therefore, a facilitating work context and a workforce motivated to catch these opportunities are both required to obtain valuable outcomes, maintain health, and foster productivity in the long term [4,5].

Despite the growing importance of SE, the evidence for the effectiveness of employees’ SE interventions is still unclear. In the domain of work and organizational psychology, many topics related to employability and sustainability have been raised in recent years. Some of these concepts are organizational sustainability [6], a sustainable career [7], sustainable HRM [8], and sustainable work/employment [9]. Based on the definition of SE by van der Klink et al. [4], Hazelzet et al. have suggested operationalizing SE into four core components—health, productivity, valuable work, and long-term perspective—in relation to SE interventions [5]. They also analyzed whether employer-initiated interventions framed as SE interventions addressed these components in content and outcome measures. Despite several reviews of the literature evaluating the effectiveness of workplace interventions already existing, this body of literature does not consider the combined effects of more than one of the SE components (e.g., [10]). So far, no review has aimed at evaluating the effectiveness of health, productivity, or valuable workplace interventions on corresponding SE outcomes considering all the four core components simultaneously. Nevertheless, theoretically, SE is the result of the joint action of all its core components and cannot be measured by only one of its core components.

1.1. SE in a Development Context

The relevance of employability has gradually increased around the world. From an economic point of view, the link between wealth and a healthy working population has been significantly highlighted [11]. The Sustainability Goal Agenda-2030 from the United Nations has also stated the need for decent work for all to allow a sustainable future [12]. At the contemporary job market level, the dynamics of globalization have required organizations to pursue high performance while steadily investing in technology innovation and human resource quality [13], and workers have increasingly been expected to flexibly adapt to market demands and career transitions. In this context, successful workers identify and exploit career opportunities by means of a specific form of active adaptability, i.e., employability [14]. Recently, Lo Presti and Pluviano [15] defined employability as a mindset evolving over time (employability orientation), from which specific adaptative behaviors, called employability activities, derive (e.g., environmental monitoring and networking), proximally resulting in career success. In this conception, employees need to increasingly acquire new skills to be employable, and the employer has the primary responsibility to provide facilitating conditions. Better employment conditions and improved wellbeing should naturally follow this exchange. However, some recent theoretical and societal developments have shed light on the relevance of conceptualizing sustainable employability.

Among others, Amartya Sen’s Capability Approach offers a suitable framework for interpreting employability [16]. According to this author, acquiring new competencies is not necessarily followed by an improvement in working conditions or added value at work. Sen instead proposed an alternative development model, expressed in the capability approach, according to which people can achieve more than one alternative combination of outcomes or functionings [16]. This means that no employment outcomes are naturally given because, as Sen contends, choices are sometimes constrained or limited and may not result in predetermined functionings or outcomes. Therefore, the realization of one functioning instead of another is the consequence of people’s freedom to choose what is valuable for them and the opportunities they are or are not tangibly offered [16]. Therefore, the capability to be intended as the opportunity and potential to realize specific functionings is central to this conception.

Health is one of the capabilities that deserves special attention because of the way it is treated within this theoretical framework. Due to an aging society’s economic and social challenges, awareness of the need for retaining aging employees and integrating or reintegrating people with disabilities or diseases at work has gradually arisen [17,18]. The coronavirus pandemic has further highlighted the link between work and health, as the impossibility of preserving workers’ health suspended the majority of work activities. Therefore, a new approach to health has been developed: from output to a capability to help all people achieve valuable goals [19,20]. In this sense, health has to be considered an essential capability for adapting to work challenges [21]. In light of the capability approach, health can significantly influence whether employees can achieve valuable work outcomes [22]. Moreover, in achieving valuable work outcomes, both the employee and the employer are involved in balancing work and health demands and resources [23].

Following these theoretical and societal developments in Central Northern Europe, a new construct of SE has been introduced. Van der Klink et al.’s conception of SE is distinctively based on Amartya Sen’s capability approach [4,22]. As already underlined, according to Sen [22], a capability is an ability and real opportunity of achieving diverse functionings in life that people can evaluate in terms of value. The focus is on a person’s freedom to choose between a set of potential capabilities to do or be what he or she values doing or being [22]. Values are, therefore, a central component of contemporary work life and have to be emphasized in employability approaches. As functionings can be valuable for both the worker and the organization, both of them are responsible for building capabilities or opportunities to achieve valuable functionings [4]. In order to attain these outcomes, personal and work resources (e.g., employee capacity and work characteristics, respectively) have to play an input role in the process, whereas personal and work conversion factors (e.g., employee motivation to learn and HRM policy, respectively) must convert potentialities or capabilities into actual functionings [4].

1.2. SE as the Set of Four Classes of Capabilities

The SE model has been criticized for having poorly defined SE both as the set of capabilities or opportunities to achieve valuable functionings and the process of converting favorable conditions in this set [24,25,26]. According to Fleuren et al. [24,25], employability should indeed be considered only as an individual characteristic resulting from interactions among other individuals, work, and contextual characteristics, or considered as a multidimensional concept originated by different components and captured at a one-time point. The sustainability of the process can instead be captured by repeated measures at multiple time points [25]. In line with Hazelzet et al. [5], SE can therefore be considered only as a set of health, productivity, valuable work, and long-term capabilities. Such a definition addresses the main limitation of van der Klink et al.’s model, consisting of defining SE both as the set of capabilities and the process of converting capabilities in SE outcomes. It also helps to clarify that SE interventions should address these four classes of capabilities.

1.3. Towards the Definition of SE Interventions

Hazelzet et al. [5], in accordance with van der Klink et al.’s definition, have suggested operationalizing SE into four SE core components—health, productivity, valuable work, and long-term perspective—that constitute the main elements that SE interventions should address. SE interventions should indeed take both into account for employee health, in regard to wellbeing, work ability, and mood (health component), and for employee productivity, considering, for example, turnover issues and safety behaviors (productivity component). In light of Sen’s capability approach [4,22], they also need to allow employees to achieve value at work by developing skills, knowledge, personal resources, and capabilities (valuable work component). Finally, SE interventions should be considered from a long-term perspective, contemplating the long-term effects of interventions and the future health, productivity, and employability of employees of diverse ages (long-term perspective component) [5]. Therefore, SE interventions should take into account health and safety, productivity and ergonomics, lifestyle and stress management issues, and the sustainability of work in the long term. Moreover, SE interventions can be coherent with the theoretical framework considering these topics simultaneously, thus adopting a comprehensive approach.

1.4. Interventions for SE

As SE is still being defined, there are few SE intervention studies and studies evaluating the effectiveness of SE interventions. Oakman et al. [10] reviewed workplace interventions to promote work ability, considering the latter as a relevant proxy for SE; they found only moderate evidence for a positive effect of interventions on work ability, stressing the need for more high-quality studies. Cloostermans et al. [27], while reviewing the literature, narrowed the SE perspective to the effectiveness of interventions on work ability, productivity, and retirement of aging workers. Evidence for the positive effects of workplace interventions on these outcomes was insufficient, and additional studies are needed [27]. Van der Mark-Reeuwijk et al. [28] searched for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) evaluating interventions to improve four outcomes (i.e., need for recovery, work ability, sickness absence, or exit from paid work) of interest for SE. The few interventions that were found had a small positive effect on the considered SE outcomes but largely differed among them, with the result that it was not clear which interventions were most effective for whom and in which working conditions [28]. Hazelzet et al. [5] reviewed the literature on employer-initiated interventions framed as SE interventions; they found very few studies with, at best, a moderate level of evidence for a positive effect on the valuable work SE component. Therefore, it is still unclear if interventions which include all SE core components are more effective.

2. Practical and Societal Implications

In order to better define good practices for SE, it is helpful to take a closer look at the effective interventions included in this review that had a positive effect on SE work outcomes. In the study by Koolhaas et al., employees were provided with a booklet to assess their career and development opportunities, and they discussed solutions with their supervisors, who were previously trained in providing employee resources [36]. In the study by Hadgraft et al., some valuable work intervention ingredients—coaching, group brainstorming, and support by leaders—might have contributed to building new awareness regarding the workers’ health behavior [47]. We argue that these effective intervention elements have contributed to enhancing specific capabilities among employees, resulting in positive effects on valuable work outcomes. As the valuable work component had positive effects on related outcomes in more than half of the included studies, in line with Sen’s capability approach [22], our results suggest that it is essential to address the valuable work component in intervention content to enable an intrinsically valuable work life [5,61]. This implication is supported by the recent promising scientific literature that overall underlines the importance of enabling valuable work practices for SE. These practices mainly take shapes in a dialogue-based toolkit [62,63]; health and safety monitoring routines [64]; tailormade development programs [65]; the promotion of opportunities and employee development fitted with personal wishes and needs [66]; negotiation and discussion about I-deals and systematic training as well as structured conversation processes and coaches [67]; the improvement of the employee psychological capital [68]; job crafting and continuous sustainable changes [69]; continuous routines of conditions’ assessments and shared action plans [70]; career development discussions as well as regular dialogue and organizational culture [71]; and counseling, coaching, mentoring and motivational interviewing [60]. Therefore, developing capabilities in the form of competencies and health resources should be considered a key action in SE promotion and requires further practical advancement.

It is crucial to consider and conduct intervention process evaluations [72]. The previous literature explains how program failure regarding health outcomes could be related to many factors, such as the incomprehensiveness of interventions or insufficient employee participation [5,36,73,74]. Regarding productivity, the previous literature underlines how this construct is complex to measure, and—regarding intervention effectiveness on productivity outcomes—in some cases, employees do not have low levels of productivity that can be improved through an intervention, or intervention attendance is too low [75,76]. Intervention effects, those on outcomes in line with intervention content or not, may be explained with complex mediating and moderating processes [77]. In our review of studies, only five out of fourteen studies included an intervention process evaluation [36,37,41,51,78]. When the program failed, the authors reported reasons such as a short duration, a lack of training frequency, an inadequate level of skills, or low adherence to the program [34,35,39,49,78]. However, further attention to understanding what happens in the workplace is crucial to orient SE interventions and practices [79].

As this review points out, SE interventions should simultaneously promote and cover health, productivity, valuable work, and long-term perspective issues through their content. Therefore, the first step toward promoting the interventions’ effectiveness is to consider, at the level of HRM, the possible interrelations among intervention elements that boost productivity, health, and safety in creating transversal capabilities. At the employee level, as employee choices are central in the SE perspective, it is essential to encourage employee participation in intervention planning that is in line with their work life stage, considering the full value that employees can obtain from the intervention [66]. The need to adopt a synergistic and comprehensive perspective of SE is also strongly encouraged because of population aging, technological developments, and uncertain career trajectories [13]. Additionally, this need has been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which is quickly and increasingly changing the ways of working and competencies required [80]. The pandemic is disrupting people’s careers, health, and finances, making clear the relevance of developing new career and proactive competencies and employability resources according to each life stage [3]. Within organizations, this implies creating a solid culture of SE. Thus, the COVID-19 pandemic could help clarify the need to address productivity, competencies, and health issues together at work [26]. As this review shows, SE interventions still tend to limit their focus to individual conversion factors rather than including organizational factors. Particular attention should also be given to relevant organizational conversion factors, such as employee work-health balance or changing leadership [26]. Paying attention to these factors could be considered the first step to building an organizational culture of SE.

On the level of national labor policies, developing a participatory culture for SE implies developing active SE policies strongly aligned to workforce needs as well as allocating working hours for the acquirement of new healthy capabilities [71], in line with decent work United Nations’ Sustainability Goal Agenda 2030 [12]. Societies also need to provide adequate incentives to companies for employee retention and plan community-level measures while considering societal, mental, and biological aging [70].

This entry is adapted from the peer-reviewed paper 10.3390/su14063300

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