1 Age
Vantage Ageing (2020) shares six reasons why an age diverse workplace is important:
- studies show that age diversity improves performance
- it can reduce employee turnover
- it drives innovation
- it offers a variety of skillsets
- it provides a range of business approaches that can help you reach different customer types more effectively
- it offers a mentorship platform which can work both ways.
Exploring discrimination
Even though there are clear benefits to age diversity within the workforce, there are also many examples of age-related discrimination, of both older and younger workers. Consider these examples (ACAS, 2025):
| Direct discrimination | Pat is 55 and asks to do a management skills course to improve their chance of promotion. The manager refuses. They believe that it's not worth investing in someone who might be retiring in a few years. This is direct discrimination. |
| Indirect discrimination | An employer advertises for a ‘recent graduate’. It's likely that recent graduates will be younger workers. So older workers are disadvantaged by this requirement. This is likely to be indirect discrimination. |
| Harassment | Kim is the oldest person in the team. In team meetings people usually stand but the manager keeps offering Kim a seat. Kim asks their manager to stop but they say they’re only trying to help. Kim finds this humiliating because it feels like a silent comment on their age. This could be harassment related to age. |
| Victimisation | Charlie is an 18 year old apprentice. Some older workers think it’s funny to leave children's toys on Charlie’s desk as a ‘practical joke’. Charlie talks to their manager as they want this to stop. The manager says the organisation does not want people who cannot sort things out for themselves. They suggest ending the apprenticeship. This is likely to be victimisation. |
Simpson (2021) recommends five actions to tackle ageism in your organisation:
- Take steps to understand the level of age bias that already exists within your organisation and offer relevant training.
- Create flexible roles that appeal to the over-55 talent pool, such as rehiring retired professionals for key periods of the year on flexible contracts.
- Invest in technical training and re-skilling of this age group. Investigate creating apprentice schemes targeting this age group.
- Be prepared to hire and re-skill older candidates. Look beyond experience and technical fit to soft skills, behaviour, motivation and cultural fit.
- Ask your existing over-55 workforce what they want and how you can best support them to remain engaged in work for longer.
Enhancing your awareness
A useful way to explore the workstyles and needs of different age groups in the workplace is to consider the characteristics of the different generations, from traditionalists to Gen Z. For the first time in history, it is possible to find individuals from five generations working alongside each other.
Greater awareness of each generation’s preferences can be helpful when you’re working with colleagues from different age groups. A commonly sited example of difference in this context is preferred methods of communication. However, it is important to acknowledge that this is a generalisation and won’t apply to everyone in a given age group. Taking time to understand the preferences of an individual is always the best approach.
Activity 1 Which generation are you?
Although each generation is sometimes defined slightly differently and the specific dates can be disputed, the categories are commonly outlined as follows:
- Traditionalists, also known as the silent generation: born between 1925–1945
- Baby boomers: born between 1946–1964
- Generation X: born between 1965–1980
- Millennials (or Generation Y): born between 1981–1996
- Generation Z: born between 1997–2010
- Generation Alpha: born since 2010
Use your preferred search engine to explore your generation’s key characteristics in more detail. Do they ring true for you? Think about people you work with who are much older or younger than you – do the characteristics for their generations match their preferences?
Comment
The aim of this activity is to get you thinking about potential differences in work style that can lead to misunderstanding in the workplace. For example, if you are more aware of how an older or younger colleague prefers to communicate, you could adapt your approach or talk to them about the issue rather than feeling frustrated that their preferences are different from your own.
In the next section, you’ll consider the impact of religion or belief on the workplace, which is a much wider issue than you may have thought.