4 Common Ageism Pitfalls to Avoid

By HR Resource Force In Compliance Management Systems

Comments and questions such as “When are you going to retire” “Your over the hill” or “You old fart” may be commonly accepted phrases but they are not funny anymore and they are detrimental to your company’s culture. We know not to joke with our co-workers about race and sex, but what about age? Age discrimination has increased 2.9% EEOC. According to a Duke University survey of individuals age 60 and older, 84 percent of participants reported experiencing some form of ageism, Downey, 2011.

4 Common Ways You May Be Contributing to Ageism 

1. Are You Thinking “They” Are Less Committed
It might be easy to assume someone in their 50’s or 60’s may be looking at retirement in their near future or looking for a side job rather than a full career. However, this is antiquated thinking. The average retirement age today is 64-66 and is expected to continually rise.  The question should always be: Is this employee the most qualified candidate on my list? Additionally, your organization may want to formalize and document experience criteria that equally matches education and vice versa. Many older employees may not have the master’s degree or the bachelor’s degree, but their wealth of lifetime experience may outshine any degree.

Solutions: Why your older candidate is seeking work is subjective. Reject subjective emotions and look at the resume facts. Formalize and document experience criteria (ability to analyze problems, conduct research, and produce solutions, ability to learn complex subject matter…) and don’t be afraid to forego degree requirements in favor of industry experience.
 If your education requirement is based on “how you have always done it before” you are most likely missing out on a large talent pool.

2.  Are You Thinking “They” Have a Higher Salary
Desperate times can lead us to hasty solutions and hasty thinking, such as looking to cut employees with high salaries. Using your employees age 40 and older as your “layoff targets” could expose you to significant risk. Legally, you must list all laid off employees with their ages, from every department in your entire organization. Some sneak around this by selecting certain departments, but if reported, this discrepancy will be found. Also, be careful not to change the title of your older employee’s job and announce that position has been eliminated and then advertise a new title position with the same exact job duties. This will most likely be discovered and uncovered as well.

Solutions: Ridding your more seasoned employees for the sake of salary savings is short sighted and you risk loosing the strong knowledge base you need for long term success. Rather than firing your older aged employees, make a strategic plan for incorporating all age employees into richly diverse cohorts. Reorganize job duties and titles to maximize each team member’s valuable contribution to your company objective. Remain agile and consider that your employee’s top skills have evolved over the years. Maintain stable diversity in each employee group to enrich the intellectual knowledge and experience for all.

3. Are You Thinking “They” No Longer…
Don’t fall into the trap of creating drastically different performance reviews that suddenly deviate from a history of many previous positive reviews. Abrupt nitpicking is a warning sign that they are now being targeted. In contrast, ensure your performance reviews are consistent with layoff decisions. In a recent Boeing case, they sold their local facility to Spirit Aerosystems and were asked which employees to retain. One of the employees chosen to be fired, filed an age discrimination claim. Boeing claimed this employee had “limited skills,” performed with “low quality” and “low productivity,” and had “marginal teaming abilities.” However, his documented performance review stated he “met all expectations” in every category, including technical skills, knowledge, productivity, quality, and “people working together.”

Solutions: Use document tracking software to increase performance review accuracy and to be sure your review matches the actions in your workplace. Develop goal awareness and boost feedback with more frequent electronic delivery. Harvard Business School found that regular feedback led to substantial improvements in performance on a simple data entry task performing twice as well than subjects not receiving feedback. Contemplate Gallup’s research findings that 63% of your employees are not engaged, regardless of their age, so why not use performance reviews to increase your employee’s connection to their work and their outside world rather than an arbitrary firing tool.

4. Are you Thinking “They” Are Best Suited For These Tasks
Limiting one’s authority and cutting job duties can easily be perceived as age discrimination. Are you trying to prepare for when “they” do leave? Are you hoping they will hate their job and feel useless and quit on their own? It is tempting to avoid conflict and be passive aggressive, but if you feel your employee is no longer able to handle specific tasks, it is best to begin documenting. Sometimes you notice legitimate concerns that may foster a number of risks, but it is illegal to just begin taking away duties without ample documentation of what is happening, your efforts to remedy the situation, and retraining efforts.

Solutions: Analyze how your older employee’s assets have matured into new expertise. Identify how you can capitalize on those abilities. After seeking legal council to confirm your plan is okay, have an open conversation with your employee about how your company would benefit greatly from their current skills and ask if they are interested in this new proposition…. If this effort remains unsuccessful, archive your efforts to remedy the situation and your retraining attempts. Document and track every measurable action that has compromised the safety of that employee or others and or endangered your organization’s overall success.

Ageism can be a complex challenge to manage. It is rife with pitfalls and potentially damaging consequences. If you approach your employee management strategy with an ERM-HCM driven philosophy, you can head-off the most common compliance challenges well-before they become a problem.

By: Kristen Goodell, M.Ed, Co-Owner

Kristen converts inefficient compliance management systems and siloed technology into a dynamic workflow with end to end client support. Through our implementation process we work with you to reveal areas of hidden risk and produce new best practices for your compliance management team.

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