By Julie E 
Photo Credit ( Pixabay )
We consider ageism to be a problem that affects older employees. But according to experts, it’s having a greater impact on young workers than before.
Leia started working at a mid-sized IT company as a member of a business-development team right out of college. She was the youngest member of the squad, but her abilities had landed her the position. She claims that everyone else was essentially twice her age. Leia jumped right into the work, finding inefficiencies and offering solutions to make things more efficient. That annoyed several of the people who worked above her.
“My superiors thought I had ‘too much ambition,'” she claims. “I was informed that remarks were being made behind my back. My bosses made reference to my age in front of me on a few occasions, claiming that I was too young: “What does a 23-year-old know about these things?”
Leia, whose last name is being kept anonymous due to privacy concerns, attempted to make a difference by changing how she looked at work. “I wondered what I could do to make them less likely to take me seriously. I changed into a new outfit. I made an effort to dress older and more “ladylike.” I attempted to act older and altered my demeanor,” she recalls. “It was somewhat successful.” Leia claims that even when the remarks regarding her age and seeming inexperience decreased, she still believed that she had little room to progress. Soon after, she quit the company.
Leia encountered ageism, which is typically thought to be a problem that only older people encounter. For example, older employees may be assessed based on presumptions that they won’t pick up technology as quickly or fit into a contemporary office dynamic. According to a US research, almost two-thirds of employees 45 and older reported having witnessed or experienced age discrimination, proving that the phenomenon is real. However, age discrimination also affects younger employees. According to recent research, the youngest team members may be the ones who are now most affected by ageism in the workplace, which could have an adverse effect on their careers.
According to Michael North, an assistant professor of management and organizations at New York University’s Stern School of Business, age discrimination is undoubtedly an issue that affects older workers. However, doesn’t it work both ways? He responds, “The answer is a resounding yes.”
Data from a study that North and Stéphane P. Francioli co-authored and that will be published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology in August suggest that ageism is “a slightly worse problem targeting the young.”
Traditional corporate hierarchy values seniority, with older staff at the top and younger employees starting on the lowest rung with the expectation that they will eventually move up the ladder. Older workers have always had unfavorable ideas of the younger generation. More recently, as technology has altered how businesses function, older workers have been mistakenly labeled as less flexible and slower learners. This is a primary factor contributing to the more widely acknowledged form of ageism.
On the other hand, older employees have historically held unfavorable views about young people. According to North, the “kids these days” mentality has persisted for as long as there have been children to criticize; it is a “generational cycle” that dates back thousands of years. This has historically resulted in reduced initial expectations for younger employees in the office, who are supposed to retain a diligent but modest demeanor as they pick up tips from more seasoned coworkers.
However, North thinks that the ageism that today’s Gen Z and millennial workers experience is more severe and stems from widespread beliefs that they are entitled, lazy radicals. It’s more than a life-stage assessment in this instance, he claims. This is a more extreme situation.
Francioli and North’s study asked participants of various ages to rate how they felt about younger individuals and older people in general. Young adults did not do well. According to North, “people seem to like even older adults more than they like younger adults, who people believe are the main targets of ageism.” Additionally, participants were asked to contrast the youth of today with those of past generations. “People still feel the coldest things about today’s younger adults, even when they think back to the young adults of the 1940s, 1960s, 1980s, etc.”
Some of the more favorable terms that individuals thought of when North and Francioli asked them to describe younger adults were “ambition,” “intellect,” and “tech-savvy.” However, North claims that when it came to more derogatory terms, “entitled” was the most frequently used response, followed by “coddled,” “disrespectful,” and “radical.”
According to organizational expert Lauren Stiller Rikleen, she was invited to speak at a wide range of businesses after publishing her first book on hiring and promotion. Using terms like “disloyalty” and “entitlement,” she remarks, “I noticed that everywhere I was speaking, in the question-and-answer portion it was always hostile questions about younger people entering the workplace.”
According to Rikleen, older managers may get dissatisfied with the work habits of Gen Z and millennials, who prioritize work-life balance. “People use their own standards to evaluate other people. Therefore, that senior may have achieved success by following the conventional metrics of success, such as working long hours, missing family gatherings, and being at work all the time. A stereotype of “Well, that person isn’t acting like I did” may arise when people observe behaviors that aren’t similar, such as leaving work to go work out or have dinner with the family or adopting wellness and health initiatives.
A self-sustaining cycle?
Traditional seniority structures combined with preconceived notions that contribute to a general distaste for millennial and Gen Z workers can create a work environment that hinders young people’s advancement, hinders their career trajectory, and blocks their access to mentorship and promotion opportunities.
According to Rikleen, “younger people won’t get the opportunities they need to succeed if people at senior levels are writing them off because of assumptions.” Because they look about and decide that no one is interested in their career, they start to look elsewhere, which leads to a vicious cycle. “See?” the elder person asks. I was aware of it.
Senior managers may get dissatisfied with millennials’ and Gen Zers’ work habits and propensity to prioritize work-life balance.
According to Rikleen, raising awareness of the issue of ageism among young people will aid organizations in identifying it. “Instead of rumbling in silence, we need to start talking about this more openly,” she argues. Additionally, we must acknowledge ageism as a bias in all its manifestations. I’ve often told individuals in older generations that if you were discussing gender or race, you would never use the language you do. However, there is a perception that you can just say it and it would be acceptable because you are speaking to young people. Ageism is a real bias that must be addressed in the workplace, and we must recognize it as such.
In order to educate staff and leadership about the problem and provide them with the tools to deal with it, businesses must include it in their training and policies on other prejudices.
The good news is that if employees can persevere long enough, they may reach a sort of “sweet spot” in their careers when their qualifications and skills aren’t being questioned. However, Rikleen warns that for others, that day may be further off than it once was.
“I believe there’s a traditional mindset of, ‘Oh, they’ll settle down when they have their first kid, or get a mortgage,’ even in workplaces where younger workers are criticized,” she adds. “That is happening later and later for many of today’s youth.”
Leia, who left the corporate sector to launch a marketing start-up, argues that changing corporate culture, which has historically linked seniority to talent, is ultimately necessary to completely eradicate ageism.
“I don’t think years of experience and skill are necessarily correlated,” she adds, adding that we place a little too much value on experience. When Steve Jobs started Apple, he was 21 years old. The true contribution of younger individuals is unknown to us. I hope more employers are becoming aware of it.