Age Discrimination in the Workplace how to Protect your Business as an Owner
(514 Words)
The Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) was created to prevent older Americans from being treated unfairly in work situations based upon their age. Despite this and other state laws, age discrimination occurs frequently, and its effects can devastate a worker and a company. As a business owner, there is much you can do to protect your business from this unfair and illegal practice.
Educate your employees
A business owner is like the captain of a ship. You may not make every day to day decision, but ultimately you are responsible for what occurs. You may be able to stop age discrimination before it starts by bringing it out in the open. Some people discriminate against those who are older because they mistakenly believe stereotypes and think that anyone who is older will not perform as well at work. Others who are younger just relate better to other people their own age and may not even realize that they are favoring them over older employees.
There are many ways to educate employees. When someone joins your firm, companies often give them an employee handbook. You can include information on age discrimination in this. You can also verbalize it to incoming employees. You may want to send out a company-wide e-mail occasionally to follow up on this lesson.
It is especially important to talk to employees who will be supervising other employees or performing hiring, firing or other managerial roles. Discuss the ways in which age discrimination occurs, and why it is so important that they do not perform it.
Of course it is also important that you do not practice age discrimination yourself. Others will make moves based on your actions. Consider every choice dealing with an older employee very carefully to make sure that you are not incorrectly making a decision based on the age of someone instead of more pertinent factors.
You can also make it more difficult for you or other members of your staff to discriminate against employees. For instance, you may not want to place a space for age on your job applications or you can instruct people not to look at their date of birth so that they can evaluate resumes without taking age into account.
Another way to help stave off age discrimination is to leave yourself open to questions and concerns from your employees, especially those that are older. If an older employee feels that he or she was discriminated against, they should be able to come and discuss it. This will allow you to take care of the situation and take steps so that it does not happen again. You can allow them to make their concerns outright or even anonymously to you. Make sure that you take swift action if you suspect age discrimination in your company by talking to all parties involved and reversing any unfair decisions.
It is your responsibility as a business owner to create a positive and fair atmosphere. Workers should not be discriminated against because of their age. Take the above steps to avoid this practice.
Sources:
http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/age.cfm
http://www.dol.gov/dol/topic/discrimination/agedisc.htm