Facilitating Sustainable Careers: Getting Started

Abstract

Whilst the previous chapter aimed to formulate recommendations at a more strategic level, this chapter proposes practical advices for different stakeholders and relevant actors involved in sustainable career management: policy makers, trade unions, HR decision makers, direct supervisors and individuals. Regarding the latter, the individual career actor, more specific suggestions will be formulated in Chap. 7.

The imperative to create sustainable careers for individuals, organisations and societies has already been demonstrated in many research and policy documents. We need a different approach of careers at all levels, by all stakeholders. But still there is much uncertainty about what such an approach should entail. We advocate that the time is now to get started with putting things into practice. Given the complexity of the topic the search for one ideal solution that addresses all career-related challenges at once is likely to become like a search for “the holy grail”. But this should not prevent stakeholders at all levels to start with initiatives. The concrete suggestions for making sustainable career management work and the examples we provide in this paragraph, together with the many good practices described earlier in this book, are meant to stimulate thinking of stakeholders at different levels, to motivate them to take action, and to guide them in working out policies that fit the context in which they operate.

We present, starting from different stakeholder perspectives, hands-on user guides to facilitate sustainable career management, as a policy maker, a firm, a social partner, a supervisor or an individual. From these perspectives and corresponding roles we look at what one can contribute and how one can engage in sustainable careers.