Customer: EU (Quality of Life programme)

Duration: March 2001 – February 2004

The overall RESPECT aim is the promotion of the health, working ability and well-being of ageing employees by a series of cost-effective methods and work policies.
In order to achieve this, the Consortium proposes a number of correlated activities to:
• develop reliable assessment criteria, strategies and tools to evaluate existing and emerging work-methods impact to the work-life, health and efficiency of elderly workers;
• develop new work-models to improve the productivity, safety and work satisfaction of elderly workers and to promote their integration into the labour market;
• propose policies for improving the older worker’s position in the labour market based upon fully validated cost-effective interventions at the workplace or the relevant legislatory framework.
As secondary objectives of the project we should mention the following: – reduction of physical work demands for elderly workers (i.e. by proper ergonomic interventions)
– prevention of occupational accidents and diseases of elderly workers
– more flexible working conditions (i.e. working hours, workspace, work-rest schedules, etc.) for the aged workers
– more adequate training schemes, adapted to the needs and abilities of elderly workers
– better combination of different capabilities, knowledge and experience of different age cohort groups at work
– adequate information of employees and foremen, to understand and cater for the needs of the elderly workers
– prevention of possible isolation of elderly workers within the workplace
– abolishment of prejudices against elderly workers and harmful competition at workplaces better transition from working life to retirement

Role of TREDIT:
– Aetiological analysis of problems of elderly workers and development of best practices database
– Cost-benefit analysis for the new work-models
– Creation of Users’ Forum for the project
– Project quality control