PERFECT 50+ (Past Experience Recognized for Future Excellence through Coaching and Training 50+) aims at teaching vocational trainers that work in small- to medium-sized enterprises to become coaches for 50+ employees. The trainers are enabled to analyse employees‘ competences and job requirements. They are trained to select appropriate training measures and to coach the employees in order to support their learning process.

The project aims at preserving, updating and developing the competences of 50+ employees. Thus it is a strategy to cope with the effects of the demographic change.

In view of the accelerating technological and structural change, the knowledge acquired in any kind of initial education as a young person does no longer suffice for a whole working life. Therefore, updating and developing vocational skills of their staff is a highly important task for enterprises. For 50+ employees, there is a ne- cessity to remain competitive in regard to theabour market through a systematic adaptation and expansion of their competences to cope with the changes of the work process. The demographic change aggravates this pressure: in some industries skilled labour is already scarce. So enterprises are increasingly forced to preserve the competence and qualification of their staff members, because it is no longer possible to hire well- trained junior employees in the same numbers as in past years.