Workplace Learning Advocates (Wlas)

Mid-Life Review

Five of our WLA companies have been selected to take part in a national Mid-life Career Review Pilot. The pilot gives people with at least 20 years of working life ahead of them time to stop and take stock of where they are now and where they would like to be in the next few years.

There are various areas that people may want to review

· Career issues and developing new skills for work/leisure, More flexible working arrangements (work/life balance), Health issues, Caring responsibilities, Reducing stress, Retirement or Finance.

If you are not one of the 5 WLAs involved in the pilot you may still want to get involved. Here is how ...

If you identify people who are interested in reviewing their career you can refer them to the National Careers Service (NCS) – W: https://nationalcareersservice.direct.gov.uk or T: 0800 100 900. NCS will be able to tell them if there are any Mid-Life Career Review activities taking place in their area. If there are no local activities available then NCS will be able to give general careers advice.

Make use of some of the resources we have developed.

· Mid-Life Review Questionnaire that people can use to identify key mid-life issues – See page 2

· Mid-Life Career Review Project Resource List – See pages 3-7

The Mid-life Career Review project is managed by NIACE and supported by the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills.

Mid-Life Review Questionnaire

Name ______

What are the most important mid-life issues for you at the moment?

Rank the issues below in order of importance to you

1 = Most important and 9 = Least important

Mid-Life issues / Rank 1-9
My career issues
Developing new skills for work
Developing new skills for leisure
More flexible working arrangements (work/life balance)
My health issues
My caring responsibilities (family/friends etc)
Reducing stress
Retirement
Finance
Are there any other issues that are important to you?
Please explain a little more about your top 2 issues

Please return this questionnaire to your Workplace Learning Advocate

The Mid-life Career Review project is managed by NIACE and supported by the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills.

Mid-Life Career Review Project Resource List

This is a list of resources produced by NIACE and partners of the project.

Useful websites

The Third Age Employment Network (TAEN) provides information, case studies, factsheets and links. These include resources from the Challenging Age project, a Skills Assessment Tool for older workers, and hints and resources for mature jobseekers.

www.taen.org.uk

The unionlearn Climbing Frame includes an action planning tool and informative learning themes with links to publications and other websites. The themes include Supporting Learners at 50+, and Personal Development and Career Planning. Registration is free. It will soon be available as an App.

http://climbingframe.unionlearn.org.uk/Home

The LSIS Excellence Gateway provides access to a range of publications about the Blueprint for Careers, including a User Guide and a Quick Questionnaire. These can all be adapted to provide a framework for the midlife career review process.

http://www.excellencegateway.org.uk/node/1332

The National Careers Service is free to all adults, via a freephone telephone service 0800 100 900, by email or other web-based activities, or face to face at local offices. The website includes a skills health check, a CV Builder and 750 Job Profiles. https://nationalcareersservice.direct.gov.uk/Pages/Home.aspx

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) has a range of factsheets that are helpful to employers and employees. This link takes you to a page where you can find information about managing an ageing workforce. There are other resources on the site about age discrimination.

http://www.cipd.co.uk/hr-resources/a-z/default.aspx?letter=M

The 50plusworks website is maintained by TAEN and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), and is very useful for advisers or for others supporting people who are looking to find work or to progress at work. The first link takes you to a page about age discrimination, and the second to a comprehensive resource base including reports, articles and links to websites.

www.50plusworks.com/age-and-the-law

http://www.50plusworks.com/introduction/

It is still possible to link to the excellent but now outdated Advice-Resources Guide, Guide for the Older Workforce, which includes a lots of worksheets and activities which could be updated and adapted: http://www.50plusworks.com/downloads/Guide_for_the_Older_Workforce%20(Next%20Step%20TAEN).pdf.

The whole site is very useful- visit the site map for information about the scope of the resources.

Worksmart is a TUC website, with a range of helpful information about employment rights, and links to other relevant parts of the TUC website www.tuc.org.uk .

www.worksmart.org.uk/rights/flexible_working

Laterlife is a comprehensive website for people over 50, with a section on work and learning.

www.laterlife.com

The Prince’s Initiative for Mature Enterprise (PRIME) is the only national organisation dedicated to providing everyone over 50, who isunemployed or under threat of redundancy, with the support to achieve financial, social and personal fulfilment through sustainable self-employment.

www.prime.org.uk

The Age UK website has sections on work and learning and a range of factsheets and reports about working, training and learning later in life. These include:

Later Life in the UK (updated monthly)

http://www.ageuk.org.uk/Documents/EN-GB/Factsheets/Later_Life_UK_factsheet.pdf?dtrk=true

Agenda for Later Life 2013: Improving Later Life in Tough Times

http://www.ageuk.org.uk/Documents/EN-GB/For-professionals/Policy/agenda_for_later_life_report_2013.pdf?dtrk=true

Visit the Age UK website for more resources

www.ageuk.org.uk

One of the NCS partners for the project, based in Liverpool, is using the “mental toughness programme as a basis for the pilot.

http://www.aqr.co.uk/page/mentaltoughness

Links for information on finance and pensions:

https://www.gov.uk/

www.worksmart.org.uk

www.moneyadviceservice.org.uk

www.moneysavingexpert.com

Other useful links:

www.workingfamilies.org.uk

www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=1283

http://www.windmillsonline.co.uk/interactive/index.html

http://ageactionalliance.org/theme/healthy-workplaces/

http://ageactionalliance.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Key-Facts-Age-Demographics-Employment-TAEN-Sep_11.pdf

Some Useful Factsheets

Age Concern:

Health:

http://www.ageuk.org.uk/publications/health-and-wellbeing-publications/

Money:

http://www.ageuk.org.uk/publications/money-matters-publications/

Work & Learning:

http://www.ageuk.org.uk/publications/work-and-learning-publications/

CIPD:

Managing Age

http://www.cipd.co.uk/binaries/Managing%20Age%20GUIDE.pdf – Need to register via www.cipd.co.uk to access

Managing Ageing Workforce & Total Reward:

http://www.cipd.co.uk/hr-resources/research/managing-ageing-workforce-total-reward-role.aspx

Age & Recruitment:

http://www.cipd.co.uk/hr-resources/factsheets/age-employment.aspx

ACAS

Flexible Working & Work-Life Balance

http://www.acas.org.uk/media/pdf/4/n/Flexible-working-and-work-life-balance.pdf

Other Factsheets / Tools

Healthy Workplaces Factsheet:

http://ageactionalliance.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/AAA-Healthy-Workplaces-leaflet-final-2013-05-01.pdf

Healthy Productive Workplaces Resources Pack:

http://ageactionalliance.org/theme/healthy-workplaces/

On-Line Employer Assessment Tool:

http://taen.org.uk/uploads/resources/116-TAE-AARPLeaflet_03_web.pdf

CAB online advice about discrimination

http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/england/search.htm?query=age

Books and Publications

The Rainbow Years: the pluses of being 50+

Barry Hopson and Mike Scally, Middlesex University Press, 2008

This is a workbook with lots of resources which could be adapted for use by individuals or their advisers, written by the authors of “Build Your Own Rainbow.

What Color is Your Parachute? For retirement – planning a prosperous, healthy and happy future

John E. Nelson and Richard N. Bolles, Tenspeed Press, 2010

A practical self-directed guide, again with lots of activities to focus thoughts. All of the information provided is for the USA. This is one of many guides available from the Amazon website about using “retirement” to develop second careers as part of a range of possible activities.

The One to One Toolkit, The Groupwork Toolkit and The Job Interview Toolkit

Ann Reynolds and Julie Cooper, Careertrain Publishing, 2008-2012

Three generic books for advisers, not specifically about the midlife group but with lots of “tools” which can be adapted for any clients.

Supporting Learners at 50+: Making Informed Choices

Unionlearn, 2012

This publication is now slightly out of date but the information is also available as a Learning Theme in the Climbing Frame, which is updated regularly. See websites list for links.

The Art of Building Windmills: career tactics for the 21st century

Peter Hawkins

An influential career review process, only available second-hand from Amazon, but the best way to look at the programme is to go on the Windmills Online interactive website (see above).

The Mary Ward Centre, one of the project partners will be publishing a guide in Spring 2014, How to start a business for ESOL students.

NICEC (The National Institute for Careers Education and Counselling) Fellows have produced informative and practical reports in the past ten years which should inform the project. The authors are the late Geoff Ford (Challenging Age), Ruth Hawthorn (ICT and the over-50s: overcoming barriers to employment and training advice) and Lyn Barham (Career Management Skills and the Older Workforce). These and other reports are available for download from www.nicec.org.uk