Tackling Ageism: How Experts View Ageism in the Workforce

Ageism in the workplace is a pressing issue that affects individuals across all age groups. In the final installment of our ageism series on Get Hired with Andrew Seaman , we gathered insights from top experts who gathered in April at the Walmart Opportunity Summit in Washington, D.C. In their messages, these leaders and experts explore practical strategies to combat ageism and foster inclusive work environments.

A transcript of the conversation is below. You can listen to the episode above or on Apple Podcasts by clicking here .

You can find our previous conversations about ageism in the workforce at the links below:

• Thinking About Careers in Midlife and Beyond with Chip Conley
• How to Get Hired in Mid-Life and Beyond with Janine Vanderburg
• Strategies for Fighting Age Bias at Work with Ashton Applewhite

?? Please take a moment to help others find the show by leaving a rating and review for Get Hired with Andrew Seaman on Apple Podcasts. You can do so by clicking here . ??

TRANSCRIPT: Tackling Ageism: How Experts View Ageism in the Workforce

Andrew Seaman: For the past month Get Hired has been focused on ageism in the workplace, what it looks like, who it affects, and how to overcome it. Today's show is the fourth and final installment in our ageism series, and it's going to be a little bit different from our usual episodes. I'm excited to share it with you.

From LinkedIn News, this is Get Hired, a podcast for the ups and downs and the ever-changing landscape of our professional lives. I'm Andrew Seaman, LinkedIn senior managing editor for jobs and career development, bringing you conversations with experts who, like me, want to see you succeed at work, at home, and everywhere in between.

Last month, I attended the Walmart Opportunity Summit in Washington D.C. While there, I had the chance to sit down with policymakers, academics, and talent executives from some of the biggest companies in the country. Everyone I spoke to, I asked what they think we should be doing to address ageism, what employers and employees should be doing to help mitigate this form of bias at work. And today, I want to share some of their insights with you. First up, is Joseph Fuller, he's a professor of management practice at Harvard Business School, where he co-leads the Managing the Future of Work Initiative.

Joseph Fuller: One of the things that is going to help older workers a lot is actually the application of AI, because as you do apply generative AI more broadly, two things happen. A number of the types of tasks, those for example, that involve interacting with newish software programs, or may require data analysis currently, or skills that may not come as comfortably to someone in their fifties in their sixties, a lot of those jobs will be done by the AI. The second thing though is that if you just imagine a job today an ice flow, you've got a cute polar bear family standing in the middle of it, as that shrinks a bit because of the application of AI, what goes away? Routine tasks, but what stays are human skills, so-called social skills. And older workers generally outperform younger workers on social skills because they've just had that many more experiences.

We may associate older workers maybe with having some archaic ideas or prejudices. I'm not saying that's never the case, but if you've had a thousand customer service interactions, a thousand firsts are a lot easier for you than if you've had 50 at the 51st. If you've been to lots of meetings, if you onboarded a lot of people in your life, if you've gone to lots of meetings across areas in a company when to listen and when to talk and how to remember people's names and keep track of what you have to do coming out of this.

All of those routines of work that involve human interactions, actually older workers are more comfortable with and more facile with on the whole. So this is going to be like any application of technology, there are going to be puts and takes. But companies also are going to be working to extend healthy workers' career lives to the extent that they want to do that because of their what's called implicit knowledge, what they know about a process, or companies that are customer-based, or whatever else. And because it's going to be a constrained workforce. And one way to expand the pool of workers is to be a willing, comfortable, happy hirer of someone between the ages of 65 and 75.

Andrew: A constrained workforce, as Professor Fuller said, is one reason older workers have to be optimistic about the future of hiring. Companies and recruiters will need to check their age biases at the door if they want to grow their businesses. That's also what Johnny Taylor, president and CEO of SHRM, which stands for the Society for Human Resources Management told me when I asked him about his perspective on the issue of ageism.

Johnny Taylor: Ageism is alive and well, but the good news is we need older workers because we have a shortage of people and we have 9 million open jobs, 8.8 to be exact right now in America. We actually don't have the luxury of engaging in the sort of ageism that we did in times past. So what I would say to you is mindset. Don't get stuck in how you felt 20 years ago. And the piece of advice that I would give to you is it's sometimes not so much about your age, your chronological age, it's about have you kept up with the skills. So if you are not up to date, then that's your problem. It's not related to your age. There are older people who know all of the latest technologies and there are older people who refuse to embrace the new technologies, that will get you every day is your inability to maintain the skills of today, not your chronological age.

Andrew: Like Johnny said, one of the best strategies older workers can use to overcome ageism during the hiring process is to focus on their skills and on building new ones. I posed the same question, how can older workers set themselves up for success when applying for their next job to Peter Fasolo, Johnson, & Johnson's Chief Human Resources Officer?

Peter Fasolo: My advice to everyone is be a learner. Make sure you keep your skills up, vary your experiences. Make sure that you still have the soft skills and you will be able to compete within your industry.

Andrew: We'll be right back with more conversations from the Walmart Opportunity Summit after the break.?

Andrew: And we're back with more conversations from the Walmart Opportunity Summit. Before the break you heard from Peter Fasolo, CHRO at Johnson & Johnson, who emphasized the importance of always being a learner, no matter how old you are. Of course, building new skills isn't the only way older workers can overcome age bias in their careers though. There's also something to be said for working with what you have and leaning into the experiences you've accumulated in the decades you've been working. That's what Donna Morris told me in our conversation. Donna's the executive vice president and chief people officer at Walmart.

Donna Morris: I think the interesting thing with ageism is it can actually happen at any spectrum. I think often people think ageism, and they think of the older worker, but I think it's also as relevant for the younger worker. I remember being early in my career, and maybe I was fortunate, I looked very young for my age and I remember a few people saying, "There's no way you can have the experience that allows you to be X-title at the time." And I remember feeling very hurt by it. So one, own your experience. You come into a job with skills and expertise or you're going after that job because of skills and expertise. And if you're looking younger than your age, own it. And unfortunately, if you're looking older than your age, you can own that too, that's fine. I think the workforce best exhibits when it actually engages everybody. And I think our economy provides those opportunities for people now too.

I think that it's a period in time where those that might be more experienced can bring so much to actually educate the younger generation, those that are earlier in their career. Equally, I think those that are earlier in their career, often they've grown up mobile. They've only had mobile and digital experiences, and they can bring a ton of experiences to those that might have grown up in a non-digital period of time. So I would say own your experiences. Always put your hat in the ring. There's an opportunity out there for yourself. Have your personal board of directors, that's your cheerleader and/or your champion. And don't hold back, go for what it is that you really want to do.

Andrew: I also had the chance to sit down with Walmart's Chief Talent Officer, Lo Stomski. For her, the value of older workers and of multi-generational workforces is clear.

Lo Stomski: The workforce is obviously getting older and older. I'll just tell you, I just spent a week with my mentor who is in his mid-seventies, and he is as sharp as ever, as valuable as ever to an organization because he's got decades and decades of experience. So actually don't feel it in a way that we used to. I think there's a lot of companies leaning into our older workforce.

Andrew: Before we go, I want to share one more piece of advice I heard at the Walmart Opportunity Summit. This is what Tim Hourigan, executive vice president of Human Resources at Home Depot had to say about the way he thinks about age and getting hired.

Tim Hourigan: Specific to Home Depot, I look at what do you accomplish and do you fulfill your commitments regardless of age, gender, racial, background, nationality, et cetera. None of that matters as far as the role, fulfill your commitment. Now, when you come in and you say, "Well, I'm an older worker, how do I get the opportunity?" I think it's to focus on what skills do you bring. What experiences do you bring? I look at Home Depot, we have every generation represented. I have associates in stores that are over a hundred years old, and they come in every day and they do their job and they connect with the customer as well as the associates that they work with. And frankly, age is just a number.

Andrew: As we've discussed throughout the series, the issue of ageism isn't going away anytime soon, especially as our population and the workforce continues to grow older. Similarly, our discussions about ageism don't end here. This is a topic that we have and will continue to talk about on future episodes of this podcast because it will take all of us, young, old, and everyone in between to address these biases. So I hope you'll stick around and work with me.

To get started, I'd like to invite you to write about any learnings you're taking away from today's discussion in a review on Apple Podcast. Our team really enjoys reading what you learn from our shows, plus it helps other people discover our community. Speaking of community, remember that we're always here, backing you up and cheering you on. Connect with me, Andrew Seaman, and the Get Hired community on LinkedIn to continue the conversation. In fact, subscribe to my weekly newsletter that's called, you guessed it, Get Hired, to get even more information delivered to you every week. You can find those links in the show notes.

And of course, don't forget to click the follow or subscribe button to get our podcast delivered to you every Wednesday because we'll be continuing these conversations on the next episode, right here, wherever you like to listen. Get Hired is a production of LinkedIn News. This episode was produced by Grace Rubin Assaf Gidron engineered our show, Joe DiGiorgi mixed our show, Dave Pond is head of news production. Enrique Montalvo is our executive producer. Courtney Coupe is the head of original programming for LinkedIn. Dan Roth is the editor-in-chief of LinkedIn, and I am Andrew Seaman. Until next time, stay well, and best of luck.