Management: promote a 'second professional life'

In Sophia Antipolis, a structure and an association are in gestation. They will be dedicated to managers who feel blocked in their firms and dream of an own professional project.

Do not make a mistake when you read 'Second life': it is no religion, no sect or something like that. It points out a reality experimented in every firm. It is about re-energization of employees (managers first) over 45 years old. A group from Sophipolitains decided to take in account better this new reality, by creating an accompaniment structure and an association. And the ambition is to innovate in management and to launch a new social contract between the firm and its employees.Personal projectThe 'Second life' project does not come from a new management theory. It comes from experience. 'We have a ten-year-experience in strategic project management,Bruno Pagès explains, one of the initiators. ' Here is what we have noticed. If we speak about salaried employees, 40 to 50 year-old managers arrive to a position in the firm from which they cannot evolve more, whereas they still have a good potential of usefulness. Then, they are less and less motivated, they lose their productivity and their life dynamism, because they do not have any project to realize and feel socially useless. And such a problem is going to happen more and more commonly, because we are going to live older and older and with a professional life that can get longer.' 'And what is more a pity, is that a great number of these managers have acquired a remarkable professional experience, and they think about doing something else. Very often, they have one or several projects in their heads. But it is very difficult to realize the projects: a standard of living to take on, the lost of advantages sometimes harshly obtained, lack of visibility on those means of access to the conversion. And often, projects remain dreams.' 'For employers, a demand also exists. These managers receive very high wages, but sometimes do not supply any longer with productivity which can be expected, according to their position and the enormous salaries they receive. Not because they do not have the abilities, but because they do not find anymore in the firm the means to self-accomplish. For the firm, the task is to value these senior people's contribution and to develop a picture of ambition promoters, beyond the existing solutions (streamlining…).'New businesses social contract – senior salaried peopleThe small team of work which was formed in Sophia Antipolis, wish to help firms to adopt a new sight on these employees. It would be about, it is the main idea, to suggest to any self-willed person to build his/her own project without an obvious coherence with the company in which he or she works, and plan to finance the project.'But, be careful,Bruno Pagès says. It is not masked 'out placement' or streamlining. It is really the announcement of a new social contract between companies and their senior employees.'The project, which is already studied, gather together two main elements. First element: a welcoming and accompaniment structure, ensuring a kind of business coaching of self-willed people in this new adventure. The second one: a financial plan to reassure people about the minimum resources they will get for their 'Second life'.Several stages have been planned in the process. First, the reorientation stage on oneself. It is about to help each self-willed person to define his/her deepest ambitions. What the person would have liked to succeed in. The second stage is the one of the project realization (change of job, of work, create one's own firm, take the management of a start-up…). The second stage is launched only if the person decides to go further, to carry the project out. Thus, a coaching is set up. At the same time, a technical help is brought to authenticate the realization of the project. The coaching is very present during the first months. Then, regularly, every three or six months, the coach will take stock of the situation with the person to potentially redefine the project.A round table at the end of September in SophiaLaunched according to the initiative of managers from different fields, the project has been built on an innovative method of mobile coaching on the internet. The initiative seems to have been made especially for the French Riviera, where there are managers who want to change their lives, companies ready to invest, new coaching techniques and salaried managers who have already passed their conversion and that could help with their experience other self-willed people to do the same.For the moment, one of the first things to do would be to create a 'Second life' club, which would gather together all the people who took the initiative to carry their project out and who could help the others. On Sept 28th, at 6:00 pm, in Sophia Antipolis, a first round table will be organized. It will gather together, human resources managers from big groups, managers who feel concerned or who have already changed their orientation, representatives of outplacement firms. The meeting will allow to hear different viewpoints, to better the concept, to begin the constitution of the club and to really launch the 'Second life' project…InformationGünter Schmidt-TaubeTel: 04 93 65 34 44 or info@deuxiemevie.org