Professional development, employability and outplacement

Abstract

The harsh economic situation virtually the entire world is undergoing at the moment, very particularly in Spain, with an unemployment rate of about 20%, should make us reflect on how to focus the professional development and career guidelines of those in our organizations.

This article focuses on the inevitable causal relationship between training and professional development on the one hand, and the degree of individual employability on the other (something particularly relevant in times of recession when the labour market decreases).

Moreover, the need to implement tools and mechanisms to promote positional mobility such as outplacement is emphasised. The aim is clearly an increase in the size of the active workforce by reducing the number of unemployed workers.

Finally, a reflection is made on the advisability of making current working relationships in Spain more flexible by using the flexicurity scheme, something already performed with success in a variety of European countries. It is about offering every single person an interesting job, rather than keeping a particular position at any cost.

All the above mentioned will be to the benefit of the necessary productivity and sustainability of our business world, something already essential in an increasingly competitive and demanding global environment.