Abstract
Sustainable employability refers to individuals’ long-term abilities to work and remain employed. Despite its societal importance in the light of aging populations and rapidly changing skill demands, sustainable employability still requires further definition and conceptualization. As such, the present paper aims to define and conceptualize sustainable employability comprehensively by reviewing existing studies on the concept. Additionally, the paper discusses and integrates sustainable employment, sustainable work, and sustainable work ability into our broad framework of sustainable employability. The resulting conceptual framework positions sustainable employability as an inherently longitudinal multidimensional individual characteristic that is the outcome of complex interactions between individual-, work- and work environmental characteristics. This framework enables researchers to identify the employment characteristics that promote sustainable employability and thereby comprise sustainable employment. Finally, the framework links to notions of person-environment fit, and job- and organizational design to create a basis for future research on sustainable employability.
Highlights
Sustainable employability (SE) generally refers to employees’ capacities to function in work and on the labor market throughout their working lives [1]
Most conceptualizations of SE revolve around individual-level indicators. This is clearly desirable as the individual is the unit that can or cannot be employed and SE is an individual characteristic
Most conceptualizations share similar individual-level indicators, such as health, skills/competences, perceived employability, motivation/engagement/satisfaction, work ability, and performance/productivity. As these indicators capture distinct aspects of the ability to function at work and in the labor market, they could be relevant indicators to enrich our basic definition of SE
Summary
Sustainable employability (SE) generally refers to employees’ capacities to function in work and on the labor market throughout their working lives [1]. This ability to work is essential as working provides purpose in life, financial security, and social contacts, as well as safeguards health [2] and well-being [3,4]. On the societal level, prolonging the labor participation of individual citizens fosters economic welfare [8]. A thorough scientific understanding of SE and its determinants is indispensable in sustaining individual level labor participation, organizational functioning, and societal welfare
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