Have you dealt with age discrimination in your place of employment before? Or discriminated against by a general store manager or your direct employer because you shamelessly claimed The LORD Jesus Christ as your GOD on the job and got wrongfully terminated?

 

The following is for recreational reading purposes. It’s a mock discussion about how an hr professional would go about handling the workplace related challenge in the open before other employees concerning “age discrimination.”

 

 

If you were the Human Resources Manager at an organization, how would you address perceptions that older workers “are not as capable or as qualified as younger counterparts?”

Age discrimination will always be one of the hottest trending HR related topics in and out of the workplace. Why? Everyone thinks differently. Everyone starts their career at different ages. Some people after a job search hiatus are reentering the workforce as “gracefully seasoned people.” Gracefully seasoned is a smoother term for “aging.” Some people choose to reenter the workforce because they need a supplementary income alongside their pension check. Some are entering the workforce at a late age in life because they’ve been through things in their past, and now have the opportunity to catch up for lost time by starting a new job as an aging employee. Aging employees or just as valuable as younger workers because the majority of them are taking on new jobs with past experience either in low-level entry roles, former managerial roles, or perhaps experience in information technology, and carry the necessary experience needed for the job younger workers don’t have. Employers who engage in age discrimination show “pre-mature workplace immaturity.”

 

If I were the human resources manager at a Corporation, I would first bring everyone in the room and smoothly introduced them to a current situation the company is facing. I would explain to them that not only is the company currently dealing with someone making a claim of age discrimination, and also emphasize that we gladly welcome job candidates of all features and experiences to this Corporation as a gesture of using their knowledge and expertise to keep this company moving forward. Moreover, I would also bring to the discussion about current employment laws that prohibit age discrimination. From there, I would introduce aged employees currently working for the company and in a group discussion, asked them to introduce themselves to everyone and tell everyone their age. I would also encourage the aged workers as an HR professional to give an honest and unbiased testimonial to the group how they feel about working for the company and if they’ve ever felt discriminated against during their time with this organization. I would also ask them as an HR professional to share anything else that’s on their mind with the group or employment law investigators from the Department of Labor about how they feel working for the company over a certain age and if they feel their job is in jeopardy by younger employees.

 

To cover myself legally as an HR professional working for the company, I would ask employees prior to making any video testimonials to sign a waiver of free will allowing the company to record their unbiased honest testimonial of how they feel working for the company as an aging employee. I would videotape them not only as a testimonial to others to show that the company does not discriminate on hiring individuals over 50+, but I would also videotape as a means of legally covering the company just in case a lawsuit arises that the company allegedly partook in age discrimination.

Lastly, as an HR professional, I would handle perceptions of aged workers as a priceless asset to the company and here’s why. Everyone, regardless where they are in life mentally and financially today, has something unique to bring to the table. I would never look down on anyone as an HR professional because of age because you never know what’s in a person’s mind or heart that they experienced in the past. I would do my best as a human resources professional to make any and all age workers feel welcome and go above and beyond to the best of my ability to accommodate their needs, because I know as an HR Pro that I am representing the face of the company and my actions speaks volumes.

 

 

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