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Managing an ageing workforce

Age Management Initiative at Nordic Sugar in Finland

In 2013/2014 the Porkkala sugar refinery, Finland (a subsidiary of Nordzucker/Nordic Sugar) started a dedicated programme for personnel aged 58 or more.

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Implementing the Occupational Safety and Health Directive in the Romanian food industry

General objective: Implementing better actions and measures for preventing professional risks in the Food industry, focusing on small and medium enterprises (SME), in order to improve the occupational safety and health.

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Proactive recruitment of youngsters at New England Seafood, UK

New England Seafood is a fish processing business in Chessington on the outskirts of London. In the past it has relied for its permanent factory staff on conversion of temporary labour to permanent employees after a 12-week trial period.

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“Mentoring programme” at Pfeifer & Langen Polska

The good practice example at the Polish sugar company Pfeifer & Langen is twofold:

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Demography project at Unilever in Germany

Initiated by the German Unilever groups works council (Konzernbetriebsrat) of Germany in 2011, both HR management and works council agreed on a joint demography project to actively handle the impact and challenges of demographic change at the company level.

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Project “SPILL” – Lifelong learning in Germany

Joint social partners initiative: “ Sozialpartnerinitiative Lebenslanges Lernen” (SPILL)
Through technological progress and innovations, adaptation processes take place everywhere and result in qualification needs for employees in general and an ageing workforce in particular.

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TiL – Transfer of Innovative HR Solutions in the food industry

The project TiL gives management representatives and works councils in the food industry the opportunity to develop innovative solutions to actively manage the impact of demographic change and to create working conditions matching the requirements of an ageing workforce. The project is supported by consultants and experts, the trade union NGG is active project partner.

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Nestlé Reverse mentoring programme – Younger employees training older employees in Italy

The Nestlé Reverse mentoring programme gives younger employees the opportunity to share their latest knowledge on how to use social media with more senior colleagues. Since the launch of this intergenerational knowledge transfer programme, 80 pairs of Nestlé Senior Executives and junior team members have worked together in Italy and at the Nestlé International headquarters.

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Upskilling and increasing the competence of production workers at Bisca in Denmark

The Danish company Bisca is a manufacturer for biscuits and cakes with around 460 employees. Bisca is located in an area offering only few alternative jobs. The company’s workforce includes many low skilled and unskilled workers.

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Training and upskilling programme at Arla Foods in Denmark

Arla Foods (Dairy company, number of employees: 19,600) has started an extensive skills development and upskilling programme in 2009. The initiative goes back to the social partners in the Danish dairy industry, who has agreed to upgrade the skills all employees in the dairy industry within the next years.

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Company pension scheme at Unilever in Germany

The Additional Company Pension Scheme of Unilever (UZR) was initiated by the Unilever work council (Konzernbetriebsrat – group works council) as a part of a demography project. In a joint social partner approach, Unilever management and works council agreed to create the UZR as a measure to ensure flexible transitions from working to pension life. An agreement was signed by management and works council. The UZR is an additional measure to existing statutory and collective agreement pension schemes.

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Introduction of extra days of paid leave for older workers in the Belgian food industry

The previous government in power in Belgium changed the conditions for early retirement. Because of this, many workers close to retirement age are obligated to work longer than expected. The current government has decided to make the conditions even stricter and have increased the retirement age from 65 to 67 years. Hence, the social partners have decided to provide better conditions for workers with seniority. The objective is both preventive and a compensatory. In the recent negotiations, the social partners have renegotiated the conditions for extra days of leave.

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