Problem addressed

Our work environment has changed significantly in recent years. Digitization, labor shortages, an aging society, and waves of retirement pose great challenges for businesses. The Demografieberatung Digi+ supports companies and their employees in facing these changes. As part of the consultation, we work together with company representatives to develop a stable corporate strategy and use change and digitization to ensure the competitiveness of businesses and to adapt jobs and workforce to digital and demographic changes.

Demografieberatung Dig+:

• creates an awareness of the impact of digitalization and demographics in businesses,
• promotes age-appropriate and life-phase-oriented work environments so that jobs, companies, entrepreneurs, and workers can effectively respond to demographic and digital changes,
• and uses digitalization and digital support tools as an opportunity to create age-independent jobs, new possibilities for work organization, and promote the digital skills of employees through consultation (referring to tailored digital further education opportunities).

Innovative solution

The consulting services are free of charge and can be used by all companies based in Austria (except Burgenland). Depending on the needs, different target groups are the focus of the consultation, such as employees, managers, HR managers, or works council members.

We look at the challenges at the operational level, at the level of management, and at the level of employees and focus on digital and age-appropriate design in the areas of work organization, leadership and corporate culture, personnel management, knowledge and skills, and health.

The implementation of the measures is individually tailored to the company's challenges, goals, and resources in every consultation. In order to sensitize and empower the company to work on the issues independently and respond to change even after the consultation is completed, the affected employee groups are involved in all phases of the consultation. This is done through surveys, workshops, coaching, and tandem work to address the issues.

One key innovation of the implementation is our "Angebots- und Förderlandkarte" (Offer and Support Map). The interactive map collects offers and support that businesses and employees in Austria can take advantage of. This includes regional, national, and international support in the areas of skills development and training, digitalization and innovation support, support for women and people with disabilities, support for start-ups, or support for projects to increase ecological sustainability. We use a web crawler to collect the content.

Key results and benefits

The key results are:

• 930 advised companies
• 5-10% of the advised companies are start-ups
• Main target group are employees over 45 years old
• At least 50% of all employees involved in the implementation are womenn

Through demographic consulting Dig+, companies receive:

• 100% funded customized consulting services,
• complete analysis of the age structure of the workforce,
• analysis of hotspots and challenges in the company,
• empowerment and enablement for self-help,
• mediation of further offers and support from our partners.

Companies and employees have access to:

• Regional events for networking and exchange for companies
• Conferences with workshops and international experts
• Toolbox with over 60 tools
• Videos, webinars, and learning paths

Potential for mainstreaming

The "Demography Counselling" project builds on the experience of the Demography Pilots - a project from Germany - and has been adapted and expanded accordingly for implementation in Austria. Overall, the DB Digi+ project has great scaling potential and therefore, we offer public access to our knowledge and provide selected tools and guidelines that are suitable for easy independent use in the workplace. Likewise, our map with subsidies and offers for companies and employees in Austria is publicly accessible.

Other services and offers that are publicly accessible for interested individuals include:

• Webinars
• Videos
• Networking events
• Conferences
• Podcast

When preparing our content, we pay attention to a low-threshold access, so that it is also accessible to people who have not yet dealt with our topics. We continuously test our digital offers for an intuitive presentation and accessibility for people with low digital affinity, making them automatically suitable for marginalized groups, such as older people or people with little or poor knowledge of German.