DEI Efforts For The Age Underrepresented Group

Companies Should Expand Their DEI Efforts to Include Age for this underrepresented group. Research shows that measurement is important in influencing behavior. What gets measured gets managed needs to be initiated by C-Suites which will have an effective downstream result on the entire organization. As companies increasingly report their D&I statistics for women, people of color and other groups, they should also report the data for the age distribution of their workforce. We know that language matters—that we see things, in part, by the way we refer to them—and that words can hurt. Many companies have banned racist, misogynist language and call out those who use terms that inflict psychological distress on others. A similar sensitivity to ageist language (even the use of more subtle terms like “energetic and fresh” or “digital natives” to describe a company’s ideal employees)—would be a nice step in the right direction. Stereotypes about older workers and disparaging comments about them remain too common, as numerous surveys attest.