Have you ever faced ageism at work? Perhaps you had difficulty getting your first job because some teenager before you had been perceived as lacking knowledge. Perhaps you were considered too young for a promotion when you were fresh out of college even though you, unlike your colleagues, had earned your MBA. Perhaps you are being pushed toward volunteer opportunities as you near retirement when you have the skills and experience to train the person being paid as top executive and to lead the whole organization in its mission.
If you are one of the lucky few, you do not know about ageism at work. You have not experienced the discrimination and stereotyping that occurs against individuals and groups of people because of their age. You have been able to be a child, a teenager, a young adult, or a person over 50 and been celebrated for your unique talents, skills, personality, and experiences.
If this is not the case, however, and you have experienced ageism at work, you may be dealing with the stigma of discrimination. I wrote about this in “Two kinds of stigmas” and “Fight stigmas with self-care.”
I recently was asked to speak to a group of employees who were in their late 50s and early 60s. These successful professionals had reached most of their career goals and were beginning to experience age discrimination at work. They saw the many opportunities their much-younger colleagues had to learn, grow, and move within the company. They also saw a dearth of similar prospects for themselves. Those who were older, loved their work and were very good at what they did were denied growth opportunities within the organization. To add insult to injury, their skills were not optimized and they were afraid to approach management about using their skills in another department for fear of being marginalized. Although they wanted to be loyal to the company, corporations no longer feel that same loyalty to employees. They truly felt stuck in an in-between career stage. They were bored, losing confidence, and very sure their well-developed skills and creativity were underutilized because of their age. Ageism at work had become a liability for them and their employer.
It’s time to speak up and speak out about ageism. Research indicates that ageism, with its loss of confidence due to becoming less valued, is an unnecessary cause of physical and mental health issues. Doing something about ageism at work starts with you.