How To Identify Ageism In The Workplace

Ageism In The Workplace

Can you identify when ageism in the workplace occurs? Very often ageism is very subtle or veiled in language that on first blush is acceptable but after some reflection, you might say “they said I was too old”.

In the first post in this series, I discussed how to define ageism in the workplace. Ageism is a relatively new phenomenon and the term “ageism” was coined in 1969 by Robert N. Butler, M.D.

If you have not read the first post, Ageism – What It Is, How to Identify It and What to Do About It, I suggest you do that now.

I found a great article from Sherman Law called 11 Ways to Identify Age Discrimination in the Workplace [+ FAQs].

Here is their list:

Facing Harassment Based on Your Age
Seeing a Pattern of Hiring Only Younger Employees
Hearing Age-Related Remarks
Getting Turned Down For a Promotion
Being Overlooked for Challenging Work Assignments
Becoming Isolated or Left Out
Being Encouraged or Forced to Retire
Experiencing Layoffs
Having Your Position Eliminated
Receiving an Employment Improvement Plan
Facing Unfair Discipline

Have you experienced any of these forms of ageism in the workplace?

Let me take you through some examples of ageism in the workplace that I have experienced or have been told about.

Facing Harassment Based on Your Age

At both of the tech startups where I worked, I was much older than many of my colleagues. At my last “job”, I had a boss that was 15 or so years younger than myself and was very immature for his age, and level of experience. I wrote about this once before in the post When Your Ethical Boundaries are Crossed [Updated].

I made a trip to Australia, to teach a week-long series of classes, and I decided to grow a mustache during that time. I decided to keep it very well trimmed and it was somewhat “old school” in appearance. Even though my hair color had faded a bit from the flaming red I had in my youth, my hair is not gray. Well, my facial hair was very gray. It made me look older but I was fine with that.

When I walked into a meeting soon after returning, I watched with amazement as my boss and one of my colleagues snickered at my appearance. It was like a couple of young school girls gossiping off in the corner. I remember the event to this day as I found their behavior insulting but … I did nothing. I was already planning my departure from the company but this was plainly harassment in the most basic form.

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Unfortunately, harassment, in general, was overlooked at this company and it was best for me just to move on.

Seeing a Pattern of Hiring Only Younger Employees

I have several members of the Career Pivot Community who have been working on making a pivot into big data. They have some great experience from their past careers that would make them ideal candidates but they keep on getting passed over for recent graduates.

The hiring managers are looking for someone with textbook knowledge with little experience but will not look at someone with lots of experience but no textbook knowledge.

Similarly, when I left the corporate world to teach high school math in my late 40s, school districts had no interest in hiring men over 40. Every single guy who was over 40 in my teaching certification program could not get interviews. Everyone under 30 had a job before any of us were able to land an interview.

I was able to land a position but only because there was no one else available. By the way, I was a phenomenally good Algebra I and II teacher for 2 years in an inner-city high school but left exhausted.

Getting Turned Down For a Promotion

I remember having a discussion with a colleague at one of my tech startups. We both had long careers at the same major tech employer. I left when they made major changes to the pension plan and I no longer trusted them that they had my best interest in mind. My colleague stayed on but his career just stalled.

He was passed over multiple times for a promotion and he assumed it was ageism, as the person who got the promotion, was always 10-15 years younger.

He cornered his boss one day and asked why he had repetitively been passed over and his boss finally responded:

You do not have enough career runway left!

Another way of saying it is:

You are too old to invest in.

My colleague had no intention of retiring for many more years. He wanted to keep working and more importantly, he wanted to be challenged. He left the following year because he knew ageism in the workplace existed at the company.

Being Encouraged or Forced to Retire

I know multiple people who have been asked, so what are your retirement plans? These are people who were in their mid to late 60s and really do not want to retire. This often comes out of the blue and completely out of context. Frequently, this is followed by some form of resource action where they are either laid off or duties curtailed.

A few past colleagues were offered a transition to retirement program and there was not an option to say no. For several of my past colleagues, this was actually a good thing as they were consummate workaholics. This was a pathway to stop some of the behaviors that would eventually kill them.

The still wanted a choice which was not offered. They could take the transition program or be laid off.

Experiencing Layoffs or Having Your Position Eliminated

I have not directly experienced this but in my years as a board member for Launch Pad Job Club, I saw where companies would layoff an entire group of employees only to hire a new group several months later for less money.

Companies have gotten very good at hiding this behavior. IBM has been accused of this behavior. More can be found in the Forbes article The IBM Age Discrimination Lawsuit Sheds Light On A Harrowing Employment Trend.

Not Being Hired Because of Your Age

This was not on Sherman Law’s list but I have 2 great examples of not being hired because of the candidate’s age and in each case, neither the candidate or I saw it until later.

We had a recruiter present at Launch Pad and he told the story of being courted by a major tech employer in the pacific northwest. They flew him out and he interviewed for 10 grueling hours. They asked him to stay another day so that he could interview with one of the key executives.

In that interview, he asked the exec if they had apprehensions about hiring him. The hiring exec said she was not sure he had the energy for the job.

He left and soon was on the plane when it hit him – she said he was too old!

He was not offered the position!

Another example was when I was trying to hire a technical trainer. I was 95% through the process when my boss hired someone over me and took away much of my managerial responsibilities. The gentleman I wanted to hire was about the same age as myself and I was in my mid-50s at the time.

I was ready to make an offer when my new boss balked and told me my candidate just did not have the energy to meet his requirements.

It hit much later that he said the candidate was too old. Had I picked this up immediately I would have thrown the age discrimination card back at him. I was already planning my exit and wanted to make sure I had a replacement that would carry on my work. That did not happen!

Both are examples of ageism in the workplace where on the surface it did not immediately appear to be ageism.

Do You Have Examples?

I have given lots of examples of ageism in the workplace that are not strictly overt. I am sure many of you have examples that I would love for you to share in the comments below.

In my next post, I will discuss what you can do about ageism when you see it.

Tell us about your experience with ageism in the workplace.

Marc Miller

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Leslie Brown says

February 24, 2019 at 9:22 pm

This is a blog post I wrote several years ago, and while the focus of this article seems to be on age discrimination at the top end of the working age bracket, I think we have a bigger problem. Please read: This is an article I wrote on a blog that nobody reads back in 2015, but I think it is pertinent to the discussion above.

Disrupted – How We Earn A Living
I am wondering if I am the only one who has noticed that there seems to be a disconnect in the employment/unemployment stats that we are seeing in North America & and other developed nations.

Companies are claiming that they can’t find qualified candidates. The unemployed are saying they can’t get jobs or interviews. While there is a general amount of structural unemployment (jobs are not where the potential employees are located) or vice versa, much of this can be overcome by technology if both companies and individuals are willing to step back from the traditional 19th century paradigm of what constitutes an employee, being someone who works at a specific place, during specific hours, with a specific job description or duties to perform, under direct on-site supervision of someone.

The long-term unemployed face a whole other problem, even with retraining and other government-sponsored programs and a good education, the prospects can be bleak. One article that I read stated that it will take you 2 months plus 1 month/$10,000 in annual salary earned to find a replacement job, so as an example a person who earned $70,000/year would take about 9 months to find a new comparable job, likely at a lower salary. If you are unemployed for over 12 months your chances of finding another job in your old career path drop by about 75% and approach zero should you be unlucky enough to find a job after 18 months.

Here are a few of my observations:

Companies want to hire experience…but seem not to want to pay for experience or pay very little for training, if this was not true we wouldn’t have a youth unemployment rate, Canadians 15 – mid-20’s of over %15 officially, and unofficially as high as 25% if you start counting the underemployed, people not working in their credentialed professions and often working multiple jobs that still don’t approach a traditional full-time work week. In the USA and much of Western Europe, the stats for youth are similar.

At the other end of the spectrum are those that are experienced been in their profession for 10 – 20 years, age; 35 – 45, and thus have made some amount of salary progression. I have read several articles that suggest that age discrimination in hiring decisions is happening to candidates as young as 40 in some industries and in general, has moved lower from 55+ to the late ’40s for certain. In an era where life long employment situations are non-existent, it is a death sentence to be laid off in your 40’s if you are not prepared to radically shift your idea of employment and work, and I have first-hand experience being unemployed at 43, (4 years ago) when my employer went broke with a high skill set but missing one or two certifications that people normally have working at the level that I was working at.

Just who exactly are companies hiring. From my observations, it seems to be an extremely narrow demographic. They don’t want to train so they aren’t hiring the under 25 groups, and they don’t seem to want to pay the salary expectations for the over 40 group or they will hire in this group should the individual be able to consider a significant reset in salary progression, hard to do when you have committed to long term things like Children, Mortgages, and Car Payments. No wonder companies can’t find the employees that they say that they desire.

But what about the person who truly wants to work in a traditional “Job”, as many in their forties would like to, and I would say most in their 50’s & 60″s would prefer the traditional work arrangement they have been accustomed to.

If you are unemployed; you do have an expired date, a date after which you are likely to become permanently unemployed; many people are still looking for a traditional job, doing almost anything, and now homeless. All because they do not want to “Contract or Freelance” which is the new reality of a “Disrupted World of Work”

Comments

Ian Bond says

February 24, 2019 at 8:47 pm

I joined my current firm at age 57, five years ago. I was hired to build a large team and capability I’m expert in and have done 4 other times in my career. No one had this experience.

I was never given participation in the Long Term Incentivize Program, unlike several younger people who report to me . My top direct was just allocated a bonus slightly higher than mine, yet he never participates in corporate events beyond what is required and I dutifully do them all.

I don’t have “the runway” and I’m being told this every day. My family enjoys our lifestyle and I’m busy working on my outside ecommerce activities. When my situation upsets me, I double down on my alternative plans for my future.

While this may be unfair, I’m grateful my employment is steady. I have time to plot my my next move. The good news is this is no surprise to me and I’ve been plotting for some time.

In my next iteration I will have full control of my destiny. I’ve seen the future of an older employee and it’s not for me.
- Marc Miller says
  
  February 25, 2019 at 7:43 am
  
  Ian,
  
  I have been directing everyone in my online community to plan on creating their own side-gig which can always be their plan B. I wish you much success in your endeavors where you are in control.
  
  Marc
Leslie Brown says

February 24, 2019 at 9:22 pm

This is a blog post I wrote several years ago, and while the focus of this article seems to be on age discrimination at the top end of the working age bracket, I think we have a bigger problem. Please read: This is an article I wrote on a blog that nobody reads back in 2015, but I think it is pertinent to the discussion above.

Disrupted – How We Earn A Living
I am wondering if I am the only one who has noticed that there seems to be a disconnect in the employment/unemployment stats that we are seeing in North America & and other developed nations.

Companies are claiming that they can’t find qualified candidates. The unemployed are saying they can’t get jobs or interviews. While there is a general amount of structural unemployment (jobs are not where the potential employees are located) or vice versa, much of this can be overcome by technology if both companies and individuals are willing to step back from the traditional 19th century paradigm of what constitutes an employee, being someone who works at a specific place, during specific hours, with a specific job description or duties to perform, under direct on-site supervision of someone.

The long-term unemployed face a whole other problem, even with retraining and other government-sponsored programs and a good education, the prospects can be bleak. One article that I read stated that it will take you 2 months plus 1 month/$10,000 in annual salary earned to find a replacement job, so as an example a person who earned $70,000/year would take about 9 months to find a new comparable job, likely at a lower salary. If you are unemployed for over 12 months your chances of finding another job in your old career path drop by about 75% and approach zero should you be unlucky enough to find a job after 18 months.

Here are a few of my observations:

Companies want to hire experience…but seem not to want to pay for experience or pay very little for training, if this was not true we wouldn’t have a youth unemployment rate, Canadians 15 – mid-20’s of over %15 officially, and unofficially as high as 25% if you start counting the underemployed, people not working in their credentialed professions and often working multiple jobs that still don’t approach a traditional full-time work week. In the USA and much of Western Europe, the stats for youth are similar.

At the other end of the spectrum are those that are experienced been in their profession for 10 – 20 years, age; 35 – 45, and thus have made some amount of salary progression. I have read several articles that suggest that age discrimination in hiring decisions is happening to candidates as young as 40 in some industries and in general, has moved lower from 55+ to the late ’40s for certain. In an era where life long employment situations are non-existent, it is a death sentence to be laid off in your 40’s if you are not prepared to radically shift your idea of employment and work, and I have first-hand experience being unemployed at 43, (4 years ago) when my employer went broke with a high skill set but missing one or two certifications that people normally have working at the level that I was working at.

Just who exactly are companies hiring. From my observations, it seems to be an extremely narrow demographic. They don’t want to train so they aren’t hiring the under 25 groups, and they don’t seem to want to pay the salary expectations for the over 40 group or they will hire in this group should the individual be able to consider a significant reset in salary progression, hard to do when you have committed to long term things like Children, Mortgages, and Car Payments. No wonder companies can’t find the employees that they say that they desire.

But what about the person who truly wants to work in a traditional “Job”, as many in their forties would like to, and I would say most in their 50’s & 60″s would prefer the traditional work arrangement they have been accustomed to.

If you are unemployed; you do have an expired date, a date after which you are likely to become permanently unemployed; many people are still looking for a traditional job, doing almost anything, and now homeless. All because they do not want to “Contract or Freelance” which is the new reality of a “Disrupted World of Work”
- Marc Miller says
  
  February 25, 2019 at 7:45 am
  
  I do not remember who said it but “we all have an expiration date stamped on our butt and we are the only ones who cannot see it.”.
  
  Plan on working for yourself and not for the “man”.

Ageism In The Workplace