CASE STUDY N°4

PAPER A - Problem statement:

Partner:

Latvia

Summary:

Due to increase in retirement age and prolongation of working life people feel more stressed and insecure in their work places. They are afraid of losing their jobs, try to work even longer hours but respectively that leads to exhaustion and stress. We are looking for ways on how to maintain physical, mental and psychological well-being of people in pre-retirement age. The burnout is a real problem of these people (they work and take on more responsibilities than they should, facing psychological load at work, in addition they do work at home, they lack skills on how to get away from problems and it creates additional fatigue. They lack faith in their own powers; it brings a lot of negative emotions and depression.

SYNOPSIS - Brainstorming session ideas imagined by learners and staff present at partnership meetings:

These Think Tank ideas operate as incentives for Partners to produce their PAPER B proposals.

PAPER B - How partners propose to solve the problem:

BELGIUM	Considering that stressed and insecure preretirement aged people wish to remain competitive in the labour market, particularly by maintaining a good balance between physical and mental health it would be highly recommended that any training course addressing this issue includes a special fun section to inform the learners in a humorous way of the psychological mechanisms leading to stress thereby acknowledging their difficulty and showing that it can be overcome.
CYPRUS	It would be a good idea for helping people to NOT feel stressed and insecure in pre-retirement age to: Ask for some training courses from their company in order to feel that are “important” in their company. Having the knowledge feel more better and this will help them to regain the power and self-esteem. It is wise to find some activity in out of working hours. It is better to be in a group of people and have to do with sport, dancing or participating in a choir of their local community. This will help their health. It is also wise to do some volunteer work and especially in many charity groups. This will make them think different. Participating in some groups in their local community and take part in some excursions. Visiting coffee shops and meet other people , playing chess , cards or Backgammon. Family and friends must be aware of the problem and help them to not feel isolated.
ITALY	It would be a good idea to help the people that are ready for retirement to use their freetime in a useful way. The age of retirement may be a difficult age for people but if they feel useful for others it may be less difficult. They should use their time to do charity, to help others but also to keep in fit, do sports,take part in competitions, do handcraft activities.
LUXEMBOURG	To plan for each lesson an “ENERGIZER”, a playful activity to help the group connecting each other, to help people to relax, to let off steam, to counter tiring, to stimulate discussions, to promote concentration, to train the memory, to encourage after disappointment and to prepare or to finish an activity. To plan 2x year a day of “open doors” in the Dobele Trainingcenter. People can visit and try different courses and lectures. People can come in contact with alumnus and enthusiastic participants who can share experiences. To collect prospects and wishes at the beginning of a course and Feed-backs at the End of the course from the participants. So the Dobele Training center can make a Quality Evaluation. To bring out the aspect of “Training” to the students: Training is not an exam, no perfection, but place to practice, to change for the better, learning to know where are my limits, trying to go to or over the limits, mistakes are allowed during training.
POLAND	We propose to organize some activities titled: How to encourage woman to do something...? We conducted workshops with our students. We were looking for ways: how to improve physical, mental and psychological well-being of people in pre-retirement age.
PORTUGAL	Playing games, like the Portuguese, Belgian and Turkish partners played in the Latvian meeting, in which leading and organisational characteristics can be developed in a motivational, enjoyable way. Using sports activities as a way of training leadership or team work competences. Whenever possible, devising some outdoor activities (treasure hunting, for example) in order to educate orientation, observation and cooperation abilities. Planning activities that, along with present time goals, like acquiring administrative and interpersonal skills, may also prepare participants to their future retirement, for example, organising a touristic tour, a guided visit, a company’s event, yoga classes, etc.
SPAIN	A. First of all, there would be a workshop that would bring up the importance of motivation to develop one’s social abilities and emotional intelligence, and also to intensify the concept of individuality and self-esteem. B. After that, once the participants feel free to mix with other people, there would be a specific activity that will allow them to boost their faculties and calmly share life experiences. C. Once everyone has taken their pictures and enjoyed the activity along with their fellow participants, we would finish it up by teaching them the basics of computing so they can do several things: downloading their pictures; uploading them to a cloud system; improving them or retouching them; uploading them to the Internet and creating a personal blog; exchanging them with friends or just sending them with their mobile phones
TURKEY	First of all the problem must be acknowledged by the both sides,. And then some training courses can held in the company in order to make the employee productive and psychologically relax. All the workers should be ready and willing for working in order to be successful in their working life. Workers should be supported at home mentaly by the family members. Here is necessary a family training as well. Pre-retirement people should be motivated by their bosses and also by the people around for getting rid of negative emotions and depressions. Physically; we can recommend them some activities in their free time, such as; trekking, social activities, and regularly walking every day. So they will forget their exhaustion and stress. They can use some computing programmes which are chosen from amusing ones for complementing their knowledge at home after work.