All countries in the Baltic Sea Region face a growing lack of skilled work force. However, the large potential of a better inclusion of females and elderly employees and managers remains often untapped. Also female and elderly employees can increase the innovation level of a company. This publication provides strategies how to better include this important group in companies. It was developed as part of the flagship project of the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region "Innovative SMEs by Gender and Age (QUICK-IGA)." The project addresses the following objectives: - levelling of equal opportunities for women south of the Baltic Sea with the ones of northern countries; - strengthening the promotion of innovation in small and medium-sized enterprises by developing working cultures that explicitly improve the equal opportunities of women; - supporting regional development in order to optimally develop human capital and competitiveness through gender and education policy. The manual containing all the project results and additional tools for the management of demographic change at enterprise level. Part I of the book incorporates the strategy programme on "Age, Gender and Innovation: Policies and Strategies to Improve Employability and Work Ability of Women and Older People in the Baltic Sea Region," whilst part II contains action plans for the Hanse Parlament (network of business chambers) and the Baltic Sea Academy (network of academic institutions) "Promoting the employment of women and older people."

Lack of qualified staff is one of the main reasons for SMEs to not being as innovative as possible. At the same time the available human resources (HR) are not fully employed. In the Baltic Sea Region (BSR) the labour participation of women and elders is very low particularly in the countries south of the Baltic Sea This publication was developed as part of the flagship project of the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region "Innovative SMEs by Gender and Age (QUICK-IGA)." The results of the economic and labour market analyses and the BSR-wide study of Best as well as the results and experiences of the implemented Train the Trainer programme and existing instruments for the management of demographic change at the enterprise are evaluated systematically and combined in the manual. The aim of the current manual is to increase innovation capacities through higher labour participation of women and elders in SMEs. It focuses on boosting motivation and workability, thus increasing the rate of women an elderly participating in work life.