In the ERC POC program the Work-SteP team managed to design a new workforce sustainability measure, abstracted from the data en methods from the ERC Advanced project ‘towards a sustainable workforce in Europe’. The 24 item scale has been integrating into an online environment and by adding some items on demographics, a tool is now available for employers to better understand how sustainable their workforce is. The platform offers a survey distribution functionality, allowing employers to send out the questionnaire to their employees without our team’s involvement. With sufficient response, which is tracked in the Work-Step Portal, a tailored report can be generated in which comparisons are offered within the the organisation are as well as with our benchmark of European organisation. Depending on the scores of (groups in) the organisation, the reader is offered advice on how to intervene is directed to further reading on relevant literature given their context and scores. By repeating measurements employers are able to track the response to interventions in their organisations. Due to the fully automated process, our team does not have to be involved in the testing and reporting process at all, this allows us to offer the product at a very competitive price point. Even though there seems to be a product on the Dutch market that offers a test to employers in line with ours, there is no competitor that offers the full testing and reporting at the price that we are able to offer Work-Step at. This means that workforce employability testing and advice can now be offered to SME’s who classically do not have the budget for these kinds of services. With sufficient market success the Work-Step platform has been designed to allow more assessments and services to be added, making it a scalable platform given sufficient investment.
