Workplace Diversity Paper

Ageism is surprisingly common in Australia, particularly within the workforce. The definition of ageism in working life according to Furunes and Mykletun (2009), is the “stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination against ageing workers, based on chronological age or age categories such as older worker or senior”. This phenomenon has seen older workers increasingly subjected to biases and discriminatory practices when seeking and maintaining employment. Hence, the importance for organisations to understand current and trending issues on age discrimination, in order to draft and implement, effective, and relevant policies. The purpose of this report is to provide an in-depth analysis on ageism as a diversity issue in the workplace and to recommend organisational policies that recognise older workers as a strategic advantage. This analysis will focus on literature relevant to the recruitment and development of older workers. To begin with, this report will consider the context of ageism in Australia providing a deeper understanding of the diversity issue. Furthermore, an extensive discussion on the positive and negative age stereotypes of older workers will follow. The report will then review literature regarding organisational practices towards recruitment and development from an age related perspective. Finally, recommendations will ensue, providing organisational best practise suggestions to create age positive recruitment and training experiences.

Each generation has developed a set of values and postures that are different from one another. Organizational settings should understand these generational differences in order to be more effective in leading a multigenerational workforce (Al-Asfour & Lettau, 2014). Leadership Training on the Generational Gap & Age Discrimination solutions are an important issue concerning creating a training programs to combat age gap problems in the workplaces. This might help to lower discrimination violations and complaints in the workplace and to the Human Rights Commission. Society in America has become much large in age gaps in labor this is not myths, but a mere reality that needs plans for solutions.

The company should consider adopting the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967. Which help to protect any candidates or workers that are 40 years of age or older from being discriminated against on the basis of their age during the hiring, promoting, discharge, and compensation. Future qualifying workers should be oriented on the ADEA along with a sign documentation stating that they understand the guidelines. The ADEA passed on the strength of law-makers findings that the alleged older employee population had been denied equal employment opportunities thanks to invalid stereotypes ascribed to employees of a precise age demographic. This would also help the older workers feel at peace knowing that they have the same opportunity as an

The older worker is a forceful business opportunity for all types of workplaces based on the result of research. Age discrimination, therefore, needs to be avoided in companies. Everyone should be working in a harmonious environment. This is making a better outlook, such as increase job opportunities and open willingness for hiring different people with different ability. Also, in terms of their value or cost to an organization it fits government policies and not merely for the company’s financial condition. (Ryan, S

And for those without work, human resource departments are looking to hire the younger people for obvious reasons. The younger candidates may be less experienced but the bottom line is that the companies see them as much less expensive, their pay rate being much lower. Another strong advantage that the younger generation has to offer is their technology skills being more advanced and proficient. The older generation is assumed to be averse to technology, making them have a learning curve in many industries that out weighs what their prior experience may bring to the table. Being passed over for promotions, forced early retirement, and being laid off are some of the challenges that the older generation face during these challenging economic times. Laurie McCann, senior attorney for AARP is quoted saying “Despite the fact the United States’ Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) has been in place for over 35 years, age discrimination in employment remains pervasive.” (4-5) Turn over rates of employment is as high as 40% in some industries and this is an acceptable number. One company states “we design our organization around high-turnover: we make sure jobs are easy to learn so we can rapidly assimilate new people." This has been the mindset of human resource department across America as the economy has struggled. It is only very recently that the new model of retention is being slowly implemented into

Age Discrimination is an up and coming epidemic for all ages. The Discrimination entails favoring a younger employee vs. an older employee. The Age Discrimination Employment Act of 1967 states ‘The ADEA prohibits employment discrimination against persons 40 years of age or older.’("The Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967")

Age discrimination suits will continue to increase due to the age of the workforce in today’s society. Many workers are over the age of 40 and should experience age discrimination in a number of ways such as: getting fired for costing the company too much money, being too old to draw in new customers, or not even being considered for a position due to his/ her age. “In 2011, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) reported 23,465 charges of age discrimination, a significance increase from the 16,008 charges the EEOC reported in 2000” (Tauro, 2014, p. 255). The statists justify that the number of age discrimination cases are on the rise and company’s need to take action to reduce the possibility of age discrimination suits in the future.

No matter how talented or skilled an employee may be over another, workplace history has revealed more than just a few times that the younger applicant is often the one to win the job rather than the older generation. Age discrimination in the workplace has become a touchy subject for a while. It is a touchy topic because even though it might not be directly said it is apparent that the younger person is chosen more over the older worker in a lot of cases. Ageism is defined as, “Prejudice or discrimination on the basis of a person’s age also known as age discrimination” (google 1).

In America there are a lot of things we do that people disagree with. Some issues are not well know as others. Many people do not know how big of a problem age discrimination is. The issue has had such an impact that there is an Act protecting people from age discrimination. The Act, as subsequently amended, forbids employers to discriminate on grounds of age against any employee aged 40 or over. Some of the reasons why age discrimination needs to be brought to light even after the act is because, there are still cases of older people being harassed because of their age ,or being passed over for promotions.

An aging workforce indicates that the average age of workers is increasing. This means that the present majority of workers in the United States are older than the majority of workers in previous years. Currently, 20% of workers are over the age of 65 and by 2020, 25% will be over the age of 55 (Overview, 2015). From 1994 to 2014, employees aged 65 to 74 increased 126% and employees 75 and older increased 117%. Regardless of what the actual numbers were in 1994 vs. 2014, this extreme increase means that the aging workforce is not slowing down anytime soon. Between 2012 and 2022, employees aged 65 to 74 are said to increase by another 72.1% and employees 75 and older are projected to increase by another 85.2%. Also, work schedules of employees

In Andrew Mayfair’s article “The Consequences of Age Discrimination at Work”, Mayfair lists out how being ageist in the hiring process can lead to a loss in experience and potential, lead to damage productivity, risk legal liability, and lose workers. The loss of workers is very important because of the large talent pool of workers that are being missed out on (“How to Avoid Age Discrimination in the Workplace”). In Huppke’s article “Is Your Workplace Ageist?”, he also mentions how there are a loss of potentially very good workers, but aren’t taken in simply because of their age. This sort of discrimination will not only cause there to be a loss in potentially great workers, but can actually cause there to be financial costs as well. Mayfair states “your business may be sued by an employee that you illegally discriminated against, resulting in a possibly large monetary judgment against your company”. Mayfair talks about how businesses can lose lots of money in age discrimination cases, substantially hurting the business. $91 million has been collected in age discrimination cases since the age discrimination laws were put into place (Gaille). This proves how these age discrimination cases really can be costly and harmful to businesses. Discriminating based off age within a business or within the hiring process can bring many unwanted

American workforce is getting older. Fact, in between 1970 to 1991, the workforce number over the age of 40 in the U.S. has increased from 39,689,000 to 53,940,000. Because of that, the legislative and judicial developments in the age discrimination in employment have occurred (1). The baby-boomer generation - Americans born between 1946 and 1964 represents more than seventy million workers in the U.S. workplace, and that around 50 percent of the whole workforce. The whole baby-boomer generation since 2006 has falls under the protection of the federal laws against acts of discrimination based of age (ADEA) (2). In 2011 more than 40 million people in the United States are ages 65 and older. Moreover, this number will increase to 89 million and that is more than double by 2050. Age discrimination is continuing, as the workforce is growing old (3). A study by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the older workers unemployed longer than younger (4). "Age discrimination is harmful not only to the individuals who experience it. In 2004 alone, the cost of negotiated settlements of federal age discrimination complaints totaled $69 million" . Age discrimination is possibly the most damaging of the various cases of discrimination that occur in the workplace.

The term diversity explains the way which people differ from one another. Such differences affect the way people interact in the workplace. Cultural diversity is nothing but it means the representation, in one social system of people with distinctly different group affiliations of cultural significance. The different talents and their commitment to work are important to succeed. In diversity sex, gender, like Trans gender is also a diversity many transgender people are lock up, making it difficult to get an accurate population count in the world. A 90% of transgender workers were mistreating and harassment in the work place. Moreover, facts shows that 16% to 40% sexual disable people face harassment in the workplaces and about 85% of the mistreated people in the workplaces

Age discrimination can also impede on opportunities for employment due to stereotypes employers might have during job application evaluations and interviews (Irving, 2015). Despite evidence that there are “no performance differences between older and younger employees, or that older workers even outperform younger employees, discrimination against older workers can be evident”

The article demonstrates issues with managing age discrimination—demonstrating why laws are needed and why companies need to adapt them to their employment practices.