Sustainable Employability in the Mid and Late Career: An Integrative Review

What's up doc? Physicians' reflections on their sustainable employability throughout careers: a narrative inquiry

BACKGROUND

Physicians have complex and demanding jobs that may negatively affect their sustainable employability (SE) and quality of care. Despite its societal and occupational relevance, empirical research on physicians' SE is scarce. To further advance our understanding of physicians' SE, this study explores how physicians perceive their employment context to affect their SE, how physicians self-regulate with the intent to sustain their employability, and how self-regulations affect physicians' SE and their employment context.

METHODS

Twenty Dutch physicians from different specialisms were narratively interviewed between March and September 2021 by a researcher with a similar background (surgeon) to allow participants to speak in their own jargon. The interviews were analyzed collaboratively by the research team in accordance with theory-led thematic analysis.

RESULTS

According to the interviewees, group dynamics, whether positive or negative, and (mis)matches between personal professional standards and group norms on professionalism, affect their SE in the long run. Interviewees self-regulate with the intent to sustain their employability by (I) influencing work; (II) influencing themselves; and (III) influencing others. Interviewees also reflect on long-term, unintended, and dysfunctional consequences of their self-regulations.

CONCLUSIONS

We conclude that physicians' SE develops from the interplay between the employment context in which they function and their self-regulations intended to sustain employability. As self-regulations may unintentionally contribute to dysfunctional work practices in the employment context, there is a potential for a vicious cycle. Insights from this study can be used to understand and appraise how physicians self-regulate to face complex challenges at work and to prevent both dysfunctional work practices that incite self-regulation and dysfunctional consequences resulting from self-regulations.

Evaluating employability in contexts of change: validation of a scale

Introduction

Employability is a crucial factor in managing to emerge and changing job demands. This study validates an expanded version of the Employability Appraisal Scale: EAS-60, as an instrument to identify and improve competencies for employability.

Method

The EAS-60 was tested in a cross-sectional study in a Spanish population. An exploratory study was carried out using a sample of 188 workers, and the scale's structure was analyzed and confirmed in two Confirmatory Factor Analyses using a sample of 527 workers. Finally, reliability and validity were evaluated.

Results

Exploratory and confirmatory analyses provide evidence supporting the multi-dimensional structure. The scale presents good psychometric properties and criteria for interpreting the scores.

Discussion

The EAS-60 is a reliable and valid instrument. It allows Human Resource Managers to offer career plans at work that include specific actions of job socialization, training, improvement of specific skills, etc. Furthermore, employees can increase their employability and develop their professional careers.

Development and validation of sustainable employability index among older employees

BACKGROUND

Sustainable employability (SE) has become an important factor for keeping people in the labour market and enabling the extension of working life.

AIMS

We developed and validated an SE index to predict assured workability in 2 years. Additionally, we developed a scoring tool to use in practice.

METHODS

A questionnaire survey of postal employees aged ≥50 years was conducted in 2016 and followed up in 2018 (n = 1102). The data were divided into training and validation sets. The outcome was defined as whether the employees had an assured workability after 2 years or not. Multivariable log-binomial regression was used to calculate the SE index. The area under the curve (AUC) was calculated to assess the discriminative power of the index.

RESULTS

The probability of assured workability increased with increasing quintiles of the SE index. The highest quintiles of the SE index showed the highest observed and expected assured workability in 2 years. The predictive ability, area under the curve (AUC) for training was 0.79 (95% CI 0.75-0.83) and for validation data was 0.76 (95% CI 0.73-0.80). In the scoring tool, the self-rated health, workability, job satisfaction and perceived employment had the highest contribution to the index.

CONCLUSIONS

The SE index was able to distinguish the employees based on whether they had assured workability after 2 years. The scoring method could be used to calculate the potentiality of future employability among late midlife postal employees.

The MAastricht Instrument for Sustainable Employability - Italian version (MAISE-IT): a validation study

BACKGROUND

Governments and employers aim to promote sustainable employability (SE) in aging societies. In the Netherlands, an instrument for capturing the employee perspective on SE, the MAastricht Instrument for Sustainable Employability (MAISE-NL), has recently been developed. This study seeks to validate the Italian version of the MAISE (MAISE-IT).

METHODS

The MAISE-IT (a translated and culturally adapted version of the MAISE for the Italian population), the Work-Health Balance questionnaire and a demographic survey (age, gender, education, and occupational activity) were completed online by 455 respondents (328 public administration workers and 127 respondents recruited from social networks). Construct and criterion validity were tested by CFA; reliability, correlational analyses and subgroup differences with ANOVAs.

RESULTS

The CFA analysis revealed that the MAISE-IT consists of 12 scales distributed in four areas: (1) Meaning of SE; (2) Level and Factors affecting SE; (3) Overall responsibility for SE; and (4) Responsibility for factors affecting SE. Construct and criterion validity and reliability were good. Italian workers reported a moderately high level of SE. They regarded employers to be somewhat more responsible for SE than employees.

CONCLUSIONS

This study showed the validity of the MAISE-IT in the Italian context. The MAISE-IT is valuable for tapping employees' needs in order to develop SE interventions tailored to the employee perspective.

Systematic Review of Intervention Studies to Foster Sustainable Employability Core Components: Implications for Workplace Promotion

This review aims to outline the effectiveness of employer-initiated workplace interventions in promoting sustainable employability (SE), which means developing workers’ capabilities to foster productivity, health, and valuable work in the long term. A systematic search of the literature is performed in three databases covering the period from January 1999 to February 2022. Fourteen studies are included. Considering SE core components, all interventions cover the valuable work component in terms of content, and the majority also cover the health component. Interventions addressing at least three SE components have more positive effects on SE outcomes. More positive effects are found for valuable work outcomes. Overall, the findings highlight the importance of developing workplace interventions considering a comprehensive model of SE and promoting an organizational culture for SE. Future directions and limits are discussed.