Why Isn’t Ageism Included In Diversity Programs At Work?
Most organizations have diversity practices and programs in place to ensure a healthy mix of nationalities and abilities in their offices, however, ageism is missing from the majority of those programs. Just a quick scroll through HR job openings reveals the type of diversity experience future employees are expected to have, and ageism isn’t ever listed.
It’s surprising that in our current world, where ageism is becoming a more prominent conversation than ever before, age bias isn’t included in HR job postings, training sessions, or employee toolkit offerings.
This needs to change. We are imploring that anyone in an HR role reach out to us to discuss ways to bring ageism education into your organization. We can open a dialogue about how to handle team training, employee conversations, and what to do when ageism comes up in hiring or firing experiences.
The great thing about those of you in HR is that you are amazing networkers. You can reach out to each other easily and determine solutions for difficult ageism scenarios. You can talk through how ageism is being handled at your company, or ways you hope to see it handled in the future.
Ageism and age-based stereotyping is only growing within organizations, and it’s time to start to work from the inside-out to solve it. The solution internally at organizations can spread out company-wide from a Human Resources initiation.
HR departments are looked at by employees as a team of helping hands to guide the organization towards a strong, and diverse, future. When ageism isn’t included in toolkits and offerings, employees experiencing age-based stereotyping are led to believe that they are alone in their negative experience, and may not know where to turn to for help.
By expanding diversity programs to include ageism awareness, organizations become more inclusive in their attempts to ensure a healthy work environment for all of their employees.
Here are 3 ways you can start to implement ageism learning into your HR offerings.
Ageism Guides
Create messaging around ageism to send around to employees and leaders within your organization. This ensures that everyone has been made aware of what ageism is, and reveals to the company that it’s a serious matter that HR can handle if problems arise.
Ageism Conversations
Hold open conversations with anyone in the company who is interested in learning more about ageism scenarios that might come up and work, and ways they can be handled. Lean into HR’s ability to be a leader of change and solution-based tools.
Ageism Resources
Be sure to share outside ageism resources with your employees if you haven’t yet grown out your offerings. Make sure that if you are in the process of training to eliminate age-based stereotyping within your organization, you are also ensuring the health and well-being of anyone who needs immediate attention and help in ageism situations by sending them to outside resources and help.
