Sustainable careers
Sustainable career policy
A successful career policy ensures that employee and organization mutually reinforce each other. The traditional approach, which is based on predictability, job security and loyalty, no longer works. It is no longer about statically matching employees with jobs, but about dynamically dealing with change, with attention to connection, growth, workability and employability in the short and long term. Formulating new, well-founded and practice-oriented solutions to this challenge has been at the heart of SD Worx's "Next Generation Work: Creating Sustainable Careers" chair, a partnership between Antwerp Management School and SD Worx, since 2011.
Through research among organizations and employees, we look at the dimensions of sustainable career policy: a policy that really contributes to organizational results and facilitates sustainable employability of employees. We strive for academically substantiated solutions to real challenges facing organizations, employees and policymakers. We translate the research conducted in the context of the Chair into concrete tools to get started with a sustainable career policy.
On the organizational side, we highlight innovative practices, detect trends and present inspiring cases and innovative solutions. For employees and managers, we study what is necessary to ensure that both can and want to be effectively involved in the career policy. The cooperation between SD Worx and Antwerp Management School guarantees that the research provides solutions to concrete challenges in practice, that the research meets academic standards and that the findings can be placed in an international perspective.
The guiding principle in this collaboration is the conviction that, in order to arrive at sustainable solutions in the field of longer working hours, increasing long-term absenteeism due to illness, talent scarcity and employability, a different view of careers is needed. At the start of the chair in 2011, there was still the question of who was really awake to sustainable careers. Today, the concept of "sustainable careers" is well established among policymakers, social partners, employers and employees. The question is no longer 'whether' it is necessary to develop a sustainable career policy, but 'how best to do so'.
About the chair
Research
With this chair, we enable organizations to get started with a sustainable career policy. We translate the research conducted in the context of the chair into publications in which we highlight innovative practices, detect trends and present inspiring cases.
Co-creation
This research is embedded in the Next Generation Work research team. Together with our partners, we develop a sustainable vision on the future of work, focusing on the importance of co-creation and taking into account the vision of all stakeholders.
We collaborate with the University of Antwerp on the broader topic of human resources research and teaching.
We build bridges between Next Generation Work projects on sustainable human resources and the research conducted within the chair.
Development
Through our educational programs, we create sustainable mindsets on AMS full-time and executive programs.
We offer amongst others an HR masterclass, where we apply state-of-the-art research and introduce participants to the latest thinking and tools on sustainable human resources and careers. This enables your own organization to apply this input in real-life situations.
Our faculty members are experts in their academic field, but they also know how to share their knowledge with large business audiences. They act as authors, consultants, influencers as well as inspiring keynote speakers.
We also provide tailored learning programs for organizations.
About Ans De Vos
Ans De Vos was appointed professor of the chair. Her research focus is on career policy and career development, employability, psychological contracts, the socialization of newcomers and cooperation between generations. She enjoys international recognition for her expertise and is a much sought-after speaker on these topics.
From the start of her own academic career, Ans De Vos has been fascinated by careers. More specifically, her mission is to make people more competent in managing their own careers so that they can take responsibility for their professional life. Her research is focused on how a win-win can be achieved between organizations and their employees within the broader social issues that concern careers and work in general.
