How to combat ageism at work

“Dinobabies.” It’s a new term in the HR space, but one that’s thrown IBM into an unwelcome spotlight after court filings around a discrimination case emerged.

IBM executives apparently discussed how to force out older workers and labelled them “dinobabies” who should become “extinct species,” according to Bloomberg.

Company officials also complained that IBM had a much lower share of millennials in its workforce than a competitor, but that would change following layoffs.

In response, CHRO Nickle LaMoreaux said discrimination of any kind is against IBM’s culture and “there was (and is) no systemic age discrimination at our company.”

“I also want to emphasize that disrespectful language is not who we are. It in no way reflects IBM’s practices or policies.”

LaMoreau went on to detail layoffs between 2010 and 2020 that showed the company never engaged in systemic age discrimination: “IBM's workforce strategy has always been shaped by one core principle: having the right skills at the right levels in the right jobs to support our clients. It has never been driven by the age of any individual or group of employees.”

While the full situation at IBM is unclear, what is known is that ageism is still a problem that plagues many workplaces. In 2021, for example, the AARP found that 78 per cent of older workers in the U.S. had seen or experienced age discrimination in the workplace, the highest level since the organization began tracking this question in 2003.

Read more: When it comes to employment, things are tough for people aged 45 and up, according to a recent survey.

What’s behind ageism?

There are many stereotypes about older people that don’t help the situation, says Michael North, assistant professor in management and organizations at the Stern School of Business at New York University.

For example, commentary on hybrid work or remote work often suggests younger workers prefer greater flexibility, when surveys often show this not to be true and many are keen to get back to the office to socialize.

“I'm not sure the pandemic did a lot to foster generational unity… if anything, I would assume it exacerbated these already existing fault lines between generations.”

And misconceptions are also common, he says.

“For instance, that older adults can't adapt to new technologies or that older adults are automatically going to be a drain on your resources [or] in terms of people expecting that job performance declines with age and things like that or are unable to learn new things. And that's just totally not at all what the research shows.”

Read more: Stereotypes about older workers persist, according to a recent government report.

In addition, research by North and a colleague found that the more someone believes in social egalitarianism — meaning equality for all groups — the more they were against sexism and racism.

“But, fascinatingly… the opposite pattern emerged for age, which is that the more that you believe in equality for all groups, ironically, or surprisingly, at least, that actually that predicted the more that you endorse ageism,” he says.

And this is a specific type of ageism matching that seen in the IBM allegations — succession, says North.

“The idea is, simply put, the belief that older generations, older adults ‘should’… step aside and move along so as to free up opportunities and resources and jobs and political power for younger generations.”

Why? “Egalitarianism leads to people believing that older adults are actually fostering unfairness… [and] blocking opportunities for younger adults,” he says.

Combatting the stereotypes

As to how to combat ageism in the workplace, that’s a billion-dollar question, says North.

To start, it’s about checking your biases at the door, and trying to base your practices on realities more than myths or beliefs or prejudices.

“Companies often are eager to, unfortunately, cast aside older workers because they say, ‘Oh, well, they cost three times as much as the younger worker.’ [But] you have to understand that when that older worker walks out the door, you're losing what's called organizational memory. In other words, your history — and that's not just a fluffy, floozy concept, it's an actual real thing, which is if you really want to socialize your incoming workforce to the best norms and best practices of your organization, if you don't have the older guard to uphold those values and set an example or mentor your younger workforce, you're losing a lot of value there.”

It’s also about understanding “generational fissures,” while avoiding generalizations when it comes to groups such as millennials or baby boomers, he says.

“Those labels tend to get way overblown in terms of the actual science behind them…. we overstate the impact of generational brackets.”

But often organizations have differences between cohorts that should be acknowledged, says North.

“There's the old guard and the new guard. And that tension is very, very real.”

However, older people shouldn’t be in charge forever, says Phyllis Weiss Haserot, CEO and founder of Practice Development Counsel in New York.

“You have to make room for younger people, but that doesn't mean that the older people should move out if they don't want to, or if they need to keep working. I think anybody who's productive should be allowed to work as long as they want. But… there have to be role shifts…. younger people need to be given a voice and the people who tend to be the leaders need to encourage them to speak up and listen to what it is they want.”

Encouraging conversations

The solutions have a lot to do with the older and younger generations getting to know each other better, through cross-generational conversation at work, says Weiss Haserot, who is a multi-generational workplace expert.

“Until we have all the generations and ages communicating, building relationships with each other, feeling more comfortable, understanding perceptions, why they have different worldviews or different ways of looking at things, what they don't understand, then there's just going to be this divide.”

There is unique value to different ages and different generations, says North, and “the magic really happens when you get these fruitful, cross-generational conversations going.”

“Newer workers who are eager to learn are the perfect match for the old guard, who is also eager to share their knowledge and their mentoring and their wisdom,” he says, adding that reverse mentoring is also valuable.

But so many employers place great emphasis on productivity and long hours, which doesn’t give people the time to get to know each other at work, says Weiss Haserot.

“It has to come from people feeling the freedom and the safety — and psychological safety has a lot to do with it, too — but that has to be part of the culture, that people don't feel like they are going to be punished by voicing their views, that it should be an exchange of views to get to know what they are.”

In addition, initiatives around diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) can help address ageism, she says.

“Generational age diversity and those attitudes have not been given a prominent seat, if at all, at the DEI decision-making table. Most of the emphasis has been for years on race, ethnicity or gender, then it became LGBTQAI… and disability is getting more attention now too. But I think that different generational attitudes really influence and inform the attitudes and behaviours about all the other kinds of diversity.”

Despite employers planning to make their workplace more diverse through different programs, many have failed to follow through with their plans, according to a report from SHRM.