Discrimination in the workplace, in this particular case ageism (discrimination based on age), is a serious workforce issue that hurts everyone and benefits no one. Because I, too, have covered the topic of discrimination in a previous blog post, I felt it was appropriate to read and respond to a classmate’s post covering the same issue.

Angela states that there is a bias towards youth in employment seeking, and I agree. A study “at the University of California at Irvine and Tulane University found strong evidence of age discrimination in hiring…” by sending out fake applications to employers with age-revealing signals. The results concluded that “workers age 49-51…had a callback rate 29 percent lower than younger workers, and it was 47 percent lower for workers over age 64.” Though not conclusive, the results clearly hint at a negative relationship between employee age and employer callback rate. As well, Angela believes that older generation workers bring invaluable experience and insight to firms, and I, again, agree. Differences in employee age are also contributors to workplace diversity, and as I have explained in a previous blog post, high diversity firms experience greater levels of productivity and creativity than their low diversity counterparts. Thus, the inclusion of older workers in the workplace helps to strengthen businesses.

Something negative I felt while reading Angela’s post, however, was that it seemed like she believed that age-based discrimination only affected older employees. Youth, too, can face age-based discrimination in the workplace. Research conducted by the Department for Work and Pensions in the U.K. found that “Experiences of age discrimination were more common for younger groups, with under-25s at least twice as likely to have experienced it than other age groups.” So, when exploring and discussing the issue of age discrimination in the workplace, it is important to acknowledge and address its impact on both young and old employees, as dealing with one issue while ignoring the other limits the full capabilities of businesses and harms the discriminated demographic.

As the years march on, Baby Boomers, defined as the age cohort of individuals 50-69 years of age, steadily approach retirement and the ends of their lives. As a group, Baby Boomers make up “27 per cent of the population,” meaning that within the next two decades Canada will lose more than a quarter of its consumer population. In terms of consumption, a sharp decline in Canada’s consumer base would result in lower overall spending and, thus, lower revenue streams for nearly all businesses and corporations. This, in turn, means less money for investment spending and economic growth. But how will this decline affect the workforce?

In 2014, 31.1% of the Canadian workforce was comprised of Baby Boomers. As these Boomers retire and die, Canada will see a decrease in the total number people employed due to a decrease in the overall population and labour force, resulting in a skyrocketing of employment opportunities for the thousands of unemployed Generation Xers and Millenials in the country. In the workplace, this change in the working population would shift the typical firm age demographics tremendously, resulting in a workplace comprised of Generation Xers, Millenials, and the future workers from Generation Z rather than the present three-generation combination of Generation Xers.

With this change, then, comes a shift in dominant workplace values and beliefs as the generational gap that exists now will begin to shrink dramatically. With many shared work values such as team-orientation and a loyalty to relationships, Xers and Millenials will be able to work together in such a way that is impossible now with the Baby Boomers. With Generation Z, their upbringing alongside technology will complement the Xers’ and Millenials’ propensity towards change and technology use. Thus, the future dynamic of the typical Canadian workplace will change drastically, and hopefully for the better. This, as well, will present new challenges for our current understanding of Organizational Behaviour by shaking up and changing the work landscape entirely.

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Discrimination, and as an extension low diversity, is a problem that plagues businesses around the globe. Because of its large impact on employee satisfaction, discrimination often causes low morale, significantly decreased job satisfaction, and increased stress in those who are affected. In our ever-expanding globalized world, the prospect of a workplace with employees and executives made up of people with many different ethnic backgrounds is no longer an alien concept. As well, the entry of women into the workplace and labour force has, generally, been accepted by the vast majority of people in Western industrialized countries. Canada, in particular, has always appeared, to me, to be a bastion of multiculturalism, openness, understanding, and progressiveness in the world. So does that mean that Canada, then, does not face this issue? The answer is a loud and thunderous

NO!

A survey conducted by Randstad, a human-resources organization, found that “One in five Canadians say they’ve been discriminated against at work because of their gender …” This rate places Canada next to Mexico in the category of gender-based discrimination. Moreover, “26 per cent of Canadians surveyed said they’ve experienced age-based discrimination at work”, “Seventeen per cent of Canadians said they’ve been the subject of racial discrimination at work, while 16 per cent said they’ve been discriminated against because of their sexual orientation.”

What does this information explain? It reveals to us that, even in what many consider to be a wealthy, developed, and highly diverse country, discrimination still exists and thrives. The question, then, should not be whether or not discrimination exists, but rather what we should do to tackle and fight against it. Besides discrimination’s impact on employee satisfaction, what else results from discrimination and low diversity in the workplace?

Firms and businesses with low levels of diversity are less productive than their more diverse counterparts as low-diversity firms do not enjoy the varied employee skill sets, an outcome of differences in cultural upbringings, that diverse firms do. As well, businesses with low employee diversity experience lower levels of creativity and innovation due to less variation of employee perspectives and insights that is an outcome of total homogeny. To me, this information further emphasizes the importance of being accepting of diversity and personal differences in the workplace as well as being against discrimination, as both the discriminated group AND the business lose.

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