Using Potential - Jointly Tackling Demographic Change in Europe

  • Corporate leaders: BASF, Evonik, Hitachi, Randstad, SAP, Vodafone
  • Stakeholder leader: Econsense

 

Challenge

The European population  is shrinking and ageing  at the same time. The number of those older than 55 years  is steadily growing,  while all younger  age groups are shrinking. In light of these demographic changes, it has become crucial for politics, general society and  companies to radically change their entrenched ways of thinking.

Objectives

Using potential - how can the capabilities of the European workforce (especially women, older employees and younger employees) be used more effectively?

Jointly Tackling Demographic Change -How can the different stakeholders work together more efficiently?

Until now, the personnel planning of companies was mainly determined by the amount of human resources they required. In the future, firms will have to learn to cope with a possible shortage of human capital. One consequence of this development is that the potential of the existing workforce will have to be used more efficiently. The potential of women, young/prospective employees and older employees in particular has not yet been fully grasped.  This collaborative venture will therefore  focus especially on these three groups.

Another insufficiency when dealing with demographic change  is the lack of intersection between  the solutions offered by companies and the ideas that emerge from politics. Consequently, this collaborative venture sets out to promote dialogue between decision makers in politics and at companies.

Planned Outputs

  • Publication on inter-company best practice and assessment of dialogues/workshops with different issue areas to be addressed under the topical focus of this project
  • Stakeholder workshops and dialogue events to discuss the topic of demographic change on a multi-stakeholder basis and identify potential areas of improvement or change
  • Joint events with EY 2012 to present outcomes of the collaborative venture and raise awareness on the challenges, opportunities and solution addressing on demographic change

Next Steps

  • Stakeholder Dialogue sessions – Belgium, Netherlands, UK
  • Collection of best practice initiatives

Outputs

For more information on this collaborative project, please contact Sarah Dekkiche on sd(a)csreurope.org.