We recently kicked off the new year by discussing the main reasons why age diversity is important for businesses and why it should be a top consideration for businesses this year. In this editorial, we’re going to be expanding on that and discussing the core principles of being a champion of age diversity. At the Forum, we do this using the 5 pillars.
One pillar is Evidence. This means staying up to date with research and statistics about age diversity or different generations in general. This can help businesses truly understand their workforce and the benefits of having a variety of generations within it. It can also help spot potential challenges that may occur due to age differences. However, it can also help spot potential advantages of the different groups. McKinsey & Company is one good source that has done several reports on the benefits of diversity, research into debunking myths, and general analysis of the different generations. At The Age Diversity Forum, we have a continuous research programme, conducted through a variety of sources such as surveys, polls and forms, from which we produce a monthly research update report. To access the report, please respond to the contact at the bottom of this editorial.
As a Champion Partner with the ADF, we can also support and conduct your own research within your workforce. Understanding the perceptions different generations have and what they find most important can be eye-opening to businesses and help them prioritise the right things in each employee’s career and also help increase communication and understanding.
The Business Case pillar focuses on the benefits to a business that age diversity brings. This is the centre of most of our content. It is important to understand the advantages of having a multigenerational workforce but also the positives of having individual ages in your workforce. Ranging from experience to having skills in new technology, we have written several editorials on the benefits of having older workers and younger workers, but we have also discussed the potential challenges that a business will have to navigate themselves through. This often starts at its core, through misconceptions and miscommunication. We discuss how to mitigate against these challenges and even offer our training to help bring awareness to ageism.
A core reason to aim for age diversity and an important conversation we like to promote at the forum is legislation. Age is a protected characteristic under the 2010 Equality Act so to discriminate against it can lead to a breach of this act and cause serious consequences. Recently, we have seen a trend of more and more employees coming out about their experiences and more businesses facing huge costs in the face of their ageism. As workers become more confident that they will be taken seriously, they are more likely to come forward. As we have seen in cases like Eli Lilly and PetroTrace, there are huge financial costs but there is also the risk of reputational cost. Although these cases are not widely spoken about, coverage is growing. Other forms of discrimination have huge impacts on people’s perception of a brand – social media can spread information quickly and we have seen younger generations turn to boycotting. Therefore, it is important to also remember the legislative aspect of age diversity, not only because it is the morally right thing to do, but because there is also a strong business case to do so.
A pillar very close to the centre of the Age Diversity Forum is the Policy pillar. We try to influence policymakers to be more considerate of age to spread the Age Agenda and help reduce ageism in the workplace. This is something that can easily be brought into a business’ own consideration. These policymakers can be the government and their policies , and where we can demonstrate challenges to policies such as the Midlife MOT which ranges in its effectiveness and clarity, that perhaps it does not meet desired outcomes. It is also important to be aware of these policies in the business case. It can also be internal policymakers in the business and trying to make them more inclusive with their inclusion. If a business does not have the right internal regulations and policies to stop ageism, then people will continue to discriminate. There also needs to be an emphasis on bringing awareness to these policies as often people do not know about them so cannot change their behaviour accordingly.
Finally, there is a pillar centred around Workplace Solutions. This is how to encourage age diversity within the DE&I strategy and how to implement ways of thinking, activities and procedures to ensure that ageism is minimised and there is generational cohesion. This is how businesses can maximise the effectiveness and productivity of their employees and help reduce the risk of financial and reputational cost which comes with breaking the 2010 Equality Act. We have discussed this in many previous articles but it all centres around opening up the discussion. Talk to employees and find out their opinions, discuss the various perceptions and stereotypes workers may be holding onto and break them down. Break down the generational divide by simply communicating. We often hold so many ideas about people because we don’t understand. One way to do this easily is by becoming an Age Diversity Champion and accessing our training. One aspect of our training is raising awareness of these (often subconscious) stereotypes and creating a group environment where we can disprove them with facts and evidence. Again, by including every one of all ages in the workforce, you can maximise both skill and expertise, creating a more motivating and efficient environment – leading to huge gains for the business.
To summarise: the 5 pillars (in no particular order of importance) are Evidence, Business Case, Compliance, Policy, and Workplace Solutions. We use these within the ADF to help align our work towards our main goals and values. These pillars can easily be transferred to a workplace environment to help encourage age diversity in the DE&I plan. If a business is struggling to either understand the importance or where to begin, then we highly recommend breaking it down into these 5 categories.
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