Ticket to Ride: I-deals as a Strategic HR Tool for an Employable Work Force.

We describe how idiosyncratic deals (I-deals), in this case I-deals focused on workers' employability enhancement, can serve as a powerful strategic HR tool for simultaneously meeting both the strategic goals of employers and the career goals of employees. Building on a sustainable career perspective, I-deals are interpreted as highly valuable, as they can help individual employees to more easily adapt to the fast-changing environments that nowadays characterize society and the labor market. After theoretical outlines on the concepts of I-deals and employability, we argue that I-deals can form the basis for integrative employment relationships aimed at employability enhancement. This article concludes with concrete recommendations for practice, indicating that in order to enable the sound use of I-deals as a strategic HR tool, organizations should discuss I-deals and employability openly through constructive dialogue. Moreover, examples for achieving this through specific practices, such as working with employability coaches and world cafés on employability, are described.

"Knowing Me, Knowing You" the Importance of Networking for Freelancers' Careers: Examining the Mediating Role of Need for Relatedness Fulfillment and Employability-Enhancing Competencies.

Research has shown the importance of engaging in networking behaviors for employees' career success. Networking behaviors can be seen as a proactive way of creating access to career-related social resources and we argue that this type of proactive career behaviors might be particularly relevant for freelancers who cannot depend on an organizational career system supporting their further development, yet whose careers are characterized by high levels of uncertainty and unpredictability. To date, however, our understanding of how freelancers, being a category of workers that are deprived of an organizational context of support for career development, can safeguard their employability, is limited. Therefore, this study addresses this gap and investigates whether freelancers' networking behaviors are positively associated with career outcomes, through the mediating role of the need for relatedness fulfillment and employability-enhancing competencies. Hypotheses are tested via Structural Equation Modeling using a sample of 1,874 freelancers from Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. The results generally support our hypotheses, providing evidence for a significant association between networking behaviors and need for relatedness fulfillment, and between networking behaviors and employability-enhancing competencies. Moreover, we found a significant association between need for relatedness fulfillment and employability-enhancing competencies, being the mediators in our research model and the outcomes of career satisfaction and perceived future career opportunities. Implications for career development in the contemporary workplace are discussed, with particular attention for need for relatedness fulfillment, employability-enhancing competencies, and sustainable careers of freelance workers.

A Sustainable Career Perspective of Work Ability: The Importance of Resources across the Lifespan.

In this study, we examine employees' perceptions of their work ability from a sustainable career perspective. Specifically, we investigate the role of a person's perceived current fit (i.e., autonomy, strengths use and needs-supply fit), and future fit with their job as resources that affect perceived work ability, defined as the extent to which employees feel capable of continuing their current work over a longer time period. In addition, we test whether meaningfulness of one's work mediates this relationship, and we address the moderating role of age. Our hypotheses were tested using a sample of 5205 employees working in diverse sectors in Belgium. The results of multi-group Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) provide mixed evidence for our hypotheses. While all four resources were significantly and positively related to perceived meaningfulness, only needs-supply fit was positively related to perceived work ability. Strengths use, on the other hand, was also significantly related to perceived work ability, yet in a negative way. These findings underscore the importance of distinguishing between several types of resources to understand their impact upon perceived work ability. Interestingly, the relationship between future-orientedness of the job and perceived work ability was moderated by age, with the relationship only being significant and positive for middle-aged and senior workers. This suggests an increasingly important role of having a perspective of future fit with one's job as employees grow older. Contrary to our expectations, meaningfulness did not mediate the relationships between resources and perceived work ability. We discuss these findings and their implications from the perspective of sustainable career development.

Please Don't Look at Me That Way. An Empirical Study Into the Effects of Age-Based (Meta-)Stereotyping on Employability Enhancement Among Older Supermarket Workers.

At present, individuals increasingly have to take ownership of their working lives. This situation requires them to self-manage and plan their careers. However, individuals' career management does not happen in a vacuum. Studies have therefore stressed the importance of organizations introducing Sustainable Human Resource Management to share the responsibility for individuals' employability. This is expected to motivate especially disadvantaged workers, such as older workers (≥ 50 years) and those working in lower-skilled jobs, to work longer across the life-span. In view of the growing scholarly and societal attention for Sustainable Career Development (SCD), the present study examines the relationships between workers' chronological age (comparing older workers with younger and middle-aged groups, respectively) and dimensions of self-reported employability, and how perceptions of negative (meta-)stereotyping regarding older workers' productivity, reliability, and personal adaptability moderate these relationships. To examine how possible underlying psychological mechanisms can affect individuals' labor market decisions and behaviors, we developed hypotheses derived from socio-emotional selectivity and self-categorization theory, which we tested using data collected among supermarket workers in various age groups (N = 98). Moderated regression analyses showed that, in line with our hypotheses, perceptions of negative age-based (meta-)stereotyping amplifies the negative effect of older workers' age on their self-perceived employability. In particular, we found that: (1) the older worker group reported lower levels of three of the distinguished employability dimensions (i.e., anticipation and optimization, corporate sense, and balance, but not occupational expertise and personal flexibility) and (2) perceptions of stronger negative (meta-)stereotypes regarding older workers in the organization had a moderating effect on the relationship between age group and four of the distinguished employability dimensions (i.e., occupational expertise, anticipation and optimization, corporate sense, and balance, but not personal flexibility). We conclude that age group membership as well as negative age-based (meta-)stereotypes deter older workers from enhancing their employability, which may potentially impact their career decisions and opportunities, especially in view of swift changing labor market demands. We argue, therefore, that Sustainable HR practices should focus on opposing negative age-based (meta-)stereotyping and on creating an inclusive work climate, meanwhile enhancing workers' ambitions and career opportunities over the life cycle.

The Best of Both Worlds: The Role of Career Adaptability and Career Competencies in Students' Well-Being and Performance.

In addition to acquiring occupation-specific knowledge and skills, students need to develop a set of career self-management skills - or resources - that helps them to successfully maneuver the various career-related challenges they face and that stimulate their well-being, engagement, and performance in studying tasks. In the current study, we apply the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) theory in an educational setting and suggest that career adaptability and career competencies are important career resources that predict both life satisfaction and academic performance via students' satisfaction with the choice of their major and study engagement. Undergraduate students (N = 672) from nine different colleges and universities in Lithuania participated in the study. The results revealed that career adaptability and career competencies were positively linked to students' life satisfaction, both directly and via study engagement. In addition, these career resources were positively, yet indirectly, related to academic performance via study engagement. Overall, the results suggest that career resources contribute to study engagement, life satisfaction, and academic performance. The results of our study further support JD-R theorizing and its applicability in student samples. Further theoretical and practical implications are discussed.