Fundation Don Bosco is a foundation of the Salesian Province of Mary Help of Christians of the Salesians. They develop projects of residential care, socio-educational, socio-occupational insertion, support to formal education, fight against the digital divide, community promotion, as well as social volunteering initiatives. With their own methodology, the Preventive System that is characterised by comprehensive education and personalised accompaniment, with the person as the protagonist of their process and in a family atmosphere. They are present in three autonomous communities and do this through 29 social centres and the development of their work in 198 projects that attend to the most vulnerable people.

In their Foundation they are very committed to social needs and one of them and fundamental is the labour insertion, in this sense, all the people who have special difficulties to find a job are their „target public“ either because they are immigrants, women, people with low qualifications or elderly people. Therefore, it is part of their DNA.

They understand that the person has to feel useful and they must make every effort to encourage the creation of a network within the workplace, in which the necessary synergy for personal and professional growth takes place.

For all these reasons, the success of their actions is based on trying to promote the „human“ part, the human value within the company. In other words, every action they carry out within their foundation or in other organisations consists of making the individual and the human being who works for them known as a person close to them. The closer the worker is to another worker and to the management, the easier it will be to detect any problem of lack of competences and the easier it will be to correct it. In this sense, in their foundation they have a blackboard on which employees put the things they are good at and the things they would like to learn and improve. This allows young and older employees to help each other, thus creating a network that enhances the synergy of the company. They always have complex situations and situations where older people feel traumatised and do not like to talk about their problem or their competence problems.

The biggest obstacle they encounter in this type of activity is that the older person is able to break the barrier of fear of ridicule, that they are able to explain what they need help with and how they can help them, and that they are aware that this is not a negative thing. They often find that the fear of ridicule is the brake for older people.

By means of the dynamic of the blackboard, one should do an exercise of introspection and share what one is good at with others, and in this way people over 55 can help each other. This dynamic has been easy because in the foundation they have a multidisciplinary team of monitors and psychologists to provide support in any type of activity. As for the results, they can be seen from the first week.

Among the disadvantages of hiring an elder employee, they can highlight their reluctance to change in general and the difficulty they face in changing their way of working and adapting to current work trends and working methods. Their career plan is no longer as long-term as it can be for a younger worker and they are often more difficult to motivate.

Motivation, resistance to change