Forty-Three Percent Say 40-Plus Is Old: Discrimination In The Workplace
?Shep Hyken
Customer Service and Customer Experience Expert | Keynote Speaker | NYT Bestselling Author | Shep helps companies deliver AMAZING customer service experiences!
Diversity, equity and inclusion, known as DEI, is a popular yet sensitive topic in the workforce today. Leadership and HR that recognize this are finding ways to ensure employees from all races, ethnicities, abilities, sexual orientations, religions, etc., are represented. Sometimes included, but often left out, is age.
Age shows no color, race, religion, sex, etc. It just is. People get older, and as they do, workplace biases may become evident. It’s important to be aware of this issue. A 2022 study by LiveCareer,?Older People & the Workplace , revealed some intriguing findings regarding age-related stereotypes and discrimination. More than 1,000 workers were surveyed to “investigate their opinions about older people in the workplace.”
Eight in ten respondents claimed age stereotypes were still alive in the workplace.
What is considered old? Forty-three percent of those surveyed said 40-plus is old. Twenty-six percent said 50-plus is old. And 21% said 60-plus is old. So, if you are 50, with probably 15 or more years until retirement, 69% of the people you work with think you are old.
Here are some more findings from LiveCareer’s study to get you thinking about how your organization treats aging employees:
If over 50 is old, then leadership is … old. According to?Zippia , there are over 38,700 CEOs currently employed in the U.S., and their average age is 52 years old. If you look at the?Fortune 500 , the average age of a CEO is 57. Several companies on the Fortune list are run by CEOs ranging from 71 to 91!
Consider the age of the most powerful executives in the United States. President Biden was 78 when he became president. Donald Trump was 70. Barak Obama seems like a baby considering he entered the Oval Office when he was just 47. The overall?average age of a United States president ?entering office is 56 (almost 57).
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Some companies and brands are taking a proactive position against age discrimination. Dove and Wendy’s in Canada reacted to?CTV news firing Canadian news anchor ?Lisa LaFlamme for letting her hair go gray. Dove Canada responded with a #KeepTheGrey campaign on its social media postings. They wrote, “Age is beautiful. Women should be able to do it on their own terms, without consequences.” Wendy’s?tweeted , “Because a star is a star regardless of hair color.”
Companies are evaluating their retirement policies, recognizing the value of older employees.?Target recently announced ?it is eliminating the mandatory retirement age of 65. Its current CEO, Brian Cornell, will be turning 64 on his next birthday, and Target doesn’t seem ready to start planning for his successor. While Target’s reason for changing the policy may seem self-serving, you can’t ignore that they have come to realize the value in keeping their best employees, regardless of age. Other major companies like 3M, Merck and Boeing are also changing their policies on mandatory retirement.
The OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development), an international group of economists based in Paris, with more than 38 member countries, predicts that by 2050, more than four in ten individuals (that’s 40%) in the world’s most advanced economies are likely to be older than 50. The workforce is aging even more rapidly as younger people are starting work at an older age, and older people are staying employed.
We’re not getting any younger. We’re older today than yesterday, both in life and at work. We can’t fight that. It’s just a fact, and you can’t ignore it. The?U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics ?shows the workforce is also getting older. In 2000 the average age of a worker in the U.S. was 39.3. In 2010, that jumped to 41.7. In 2020, it increased to 42.8.
Despite these changes and observations, age bias still exists. It needs to be considered—and eradicated—the same as other DEI issues.
Shep Hyken ?is a customer service and customer experience expert, keynote speaker, and New York Times, bestselling business author.?For information on Shep's virtual?training programs, go to?www.thecustomerfocus.com . Follow him on?Twitter .?
This article was originally published on?Forbes.com .
Check out Shep's latest research in his?Achieving Customer Amazement Study , Sponsored by Amazon Web Services, Inc.?
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1 年Too bad there isn't an "angry" emoji in LinkedIn... ;-) Yes, this is an issue for all people over the age of 40. Period, end of story. Ageism is in full effect. It's in our movies, books, TV shows (streamed or broadcasted), and so on. No way around it. So we have to deal with it. It does indeed happen to us all at some point in our lives, right? Although I probably felt the same way when I was in my 20s and early 30s. Yes - our hands may be a tad slower on that mini keyboard on our iPhone screens, but the ability to place new information onto the "right" coat hook isn't something you can google, nor can you watch YouTube and TikTok videos to learn things that wisdom teaches for free. Should you be honored to have a long life.
Customer Experience Operations
2 年You have to understand that there are many qualified candidates in the marketplace looking for jobs when they are in their 40s or 50s, and for those folks, there is always going to be some sort of discrimination. You can't prove it, but you know it's happening. When you go through the interview gauntlet only to be notified that you are not the selected candidate, the feedback you get is just a flat-out professional lie. The recruiter will never tell you the truth about why you were not selected. It's very frustrating because your hope or belief suddenly disappears like the sun in the clouds when you know you worked your ass off to get that role. You have to outthink and outwork the establishment to get what you need to survive. If you can't, I promise you, it certainly will be a frustrating and discouraging journey. Stay strong people! "You never know how strong you really are until being strong is your only option."
Veteran Human Resources Professional
2 年I deal with “ageism” almost daily. It is very sad!
Chief Experience Officer at billquiseng.com. Award-winning Customer CARE Expert, Keynote Speaker, and Blogger
2 年Shep, I didn't just emoji ?? like or emoji ? love your post. I emoji ?? and verbally celebrated it to offer you my kudos and, as a senior, my appreciation. I especially celebrated "[A]ge bias ... needs to be considered—and eradicated." Sadly, for me, many entrepreneurial companies, especially tech companies, have young CEOs who seek younger candidates for new positions. Just because they think that their company is "up and coming", they believe that the new employees are, too. Personally, I look forward to seeking employment soon so we shall see what we shall see. Thank you, sir, for sharing. I very much appreciate you. And no matter how old you are ??, you will Always Be AMAZING!
Supply Chain | Procurement | Business | Strategy
2 年Policies or statements from companies about employment that exclude age are merely selective not inclusive.