Here’s an interesting dichotomy. Businesses have gone to great lengths to write equal opportunity policies and conduct internal training courses on their policies. Lately, they’ve even been looking at gender and race based salary gaps. Businesses write HR policies that cover many facets of their relative work places, which include discrimination of any kind. I’d like to pick up on the topic of age discrimination. Believe it or not, the age discrimination in Employment Act was written in 1967 and passed to protect people from age discrimination in the workplace.
I’m fascinated about the topic of age discrimination, because the reality is all societies work because of the age diversity in them. Families work because you have authority dynamics in them and just like families and societies, businesses need age diversity, just like they need their various roles to make them function.
Age discrimination also comes in many forms. When you are starting out in work, you get called wet behind the ears and other less flattering names, depending on your work environment. You are seen as knowing nothing. The older you are people start putting the retirement label on you, or you’re probably no longer in touch with technology. When you look at these two ends of people’s working life, they may change career several times in between. We sadly put unhelpful labels on people because of their age, or the type of job they do, etc.
The Jack Welch’s of this world had to start from somewhere before making their mark. Richard Branson and many other famous business people we look up to built heir businesses on the now dated technology of their time, using knowledge of people that varied in age and gender and background. The good thing is that all this diversity brought a level of richness to their businesses and still does. Richard Branson is still steering his empire, yet he is 68 years old. Oh my. Does that mean he is past it at 68, and has lost touch with technology? Has he lost touch with the way business works nowadays, considering he started his career back in the 1970s? Hell No. Age diversity in the work place is a positive not and problem, so see how you can make best use of it.
We really need to start looking at age in the work place differently. We need to just put things into perspective. As I said above, the recent push for gender equality, gender and race pay gaps is a very welcome push. Ageism in the work place also needs to be addressed. Look, every business has a duty to keep its staff healthy and safe at work and employees also to do the same for each other. A business would be considered to be not health and safety minded if it put a not so mobile person to work in a place where unhindered mobility was a key requirement. It would be equally negligent to employ someone in a role where they were clearly unqualified, or showed the aptitude to learn the skills of the role. In both these cases the individuals would be being set up to fail.
Anyone starting a new job needs some level of coaching and training. If the business wishes to get the best out of its employees and ensure they enjoy their work, then they need to be equipped to perform. The older and more ‘work’ experienced staff are still passionate about work but and bring their experiences to mind. Don’t let people’s grey hair get in the way of how you view them. These people have a wealth of experience they can pass on to the next generation of employees starting out in their careers. Older people in the workplace please don’t look at the younger new starts as not knowing anything. Remember you had to start your working career too.
Business leaders, it is down to you and the seriousness to which you put into the application of your policies, if ageism is to be done away with in the workplace. You need to be guiding, mentoring, coaching, staff to make decisions that inspire. After all, the people you are employing are simply trying to make an honest living, on the whole. You need to conduct statistical performance reviews on your policies. There is certainly a good balance between hiring young and senior talent and you need to find it.
