101: Workplace ageism
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, our labor force is expected to grow to 164 million people by 2024, of which 13 million will be 65 and above. This category is projected to see faster annual labor-force growth rates than any other group, according to the Society for Human Resource Management. Age discrimination has negative effects on all employees, no matter their age. And experts say out-of-control biases can cause your company to miss out, in these times of low unemployment, restricted immigration and with an older workforce wanting to stay working.
Training, please. 21% of those over the age of 40 have been the victim of age discrimination, said FastCompany.com’s Jared Lindzon, while 62% say they haven’t received any training related to age-based discrimination over the past year. “One of the reasons why a majority of employers – many of whom offer other forms of discrimination training – don’t offer age-related bias training is a lack of awareness, as incidents often go unreported,” he said.
Start with recruitment. Does your website include only photos of younger workers? Is your interview panel age diverse? “Train recruiters and interviewers to avoid ageist assumptions,” writes Jathan Janove at SHRM.org, “such as that a younger worker will work for a lower salary or that an older worker will not remain on the job for long.”
Realize ageism hurts your company. It breeds legal woes, according to HR People + Strategy’s Andrea Choate. This kind of discrimination can cause costly mistakes due to inexperienced workers – newbies don’t have in-the-trenches expertise of older workers. Ageism causes a smaller pool of mentors and potentially a loss of clients who have been nurtured by older workers over years.
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