Jeroen Mooy (58) was one of the participants in the pilot: “Even my clients and business contacts have expressed their interest in and respect for this programme and its results. I feel it is one of the elements by which TAUW really stands out.”

Career reflection
Senior colleagues can look back on a satisfying career and on the professional and personal goals they have achieved so far. Their qualities and experiences are invaluable to other, younger colleagues and the Master programme is an ideal opportunity to reflect on how they can use their wealth of experience in a meaningful way for the benefit of their colleagues.

The programme
After an individual intake interview, participants work in four full-day group sessions spread over a six-month period. The programme starts with participants reflecting on their careers, their qualities and what is meaningful to them in work and life. Using interactive work forms, the participants then identify their development needs and define individual learning objectives, which are addressed in-depth in smaller group sessions and workshops.

Generation dinner
One component of the programme was the Generation Dinner, in which participants each invite a younger colleague. By changing places during dinner, junior colleagues get to talk to all the senior colleagues about intergenerational learning. Jeroen Mooy explains, “This was a real high point of the programme. We found that sharing our observations, experiences and skills has as much, if not more, value as knowledge transfer.” Senior colleagues are valuable because of their subject knowledge but also carry weight by sharing the ‘people skills’ they learned through experience, such as dealing with work-related stress, handling sensitive issues, de-escalating disagreements and keeping a helicopter view.

The pilot has shown that this programme is not only worthwhile for the over-55s at TAUW, but can contribute to the professional and personal development of junior and mid-career colleagues as well. Working together across generations improves the quality of our work, boosts the enjoyment in our job and contributes to employee retention.