Workplace ageism and unconscious bias training as business PR management?
Revised and updated July 2024
In 2023 the Australian Human Rights Commission released a report on a successful anti-ageism intervention it had pioneered to research how to change attitudes to ageing and older people. The research aimed to contribute to a greater understanding of how negative perceptions of ageing and older adults might be shifted. The idea was not to replace negative views with positive ones, but to encourage participants to recognise the multidimensionality of ageing and avoid overly simplistic and generalised views of older adults. Participants following attendance at a short training workshop immediately demonstrated overall decreases in age-based biases and assumptions which were maintained two to three months later.
Relative to existing industry anti-ageism training approaches this appears a positive development. Unfortunately, corporate Australia still believes ‘unconscious bias’ training is the preferred method to tackle workplace ageism. In workplace settings the idea we carry within us a variety of preconditioned biases regarding sex, race and age has given impetus to the growth of the ‘unconscious bias’ training industry. In helping us become aware of our hidden biases, the training pitch argues creating more diverse and inclusive workforces delivers improved business performance. While a laudable objective most of this training is proving ineffective.
In 2021 the Australian Human Resources Institute (AHRI) in a survey of 604 HR professionals exploring issues surrounding older worker employability noted of those organisations offering ‘unconscious bias’ training at least 50 percent of these respondents reported age-related biases remaining pervasive in their workplaces. The Australian Human Rights Commission also in 2021 found ageism remained entrenched within Australia with a survey of 2500 citizens reporting that 63% of respondents had experienced ageism in the last 5 years.
And yet Australia based companies persist with diversity training, particularly ‘unconscious bias’ training. A 2023 AHRI study involving the survey of 307 HR professionals exploring the state of diversity, equity and inclusion in Australian workplaces found that the provision of this training continues to remain a popular employment practice to boost representation of minority groups including those over the age of 55.
This Australian ‘unconscious bias’ training experience mirrors overseas findings. Internationally, the past decade has seen a growing number of Fortune 500 organisations embarking on a mission to implement unconscious bias training, hoping to improve their formal diversity and inclusion (D&I) initiatives. Together with other forms of diversity training, unconscious bias training has become a massive industry. McKinsey estimated in 2017 that each year about $8bn was spent on diversity training just in the US.
However, similar to Australian results, a significant body of research suggests that unconscious bias training has had limited effects on changing beliefs in the long term or improving representation of minority groups in the workplace. In the UK, a behavioural research company advising the UK government and other organisations declared that unconscious bias training had little impact on behaviours or long-term attitudes.
All this suggests that positioning ageism as purely a product of individual attitudes that can be rectified by exposure to training might be well-meaning but misguided. In the challenge to overcome work-based ageism, structural elements underpinning its existence are often not understood or ignored because they are harder to identify and even harder to shift. To the extent organisations focus the spotlight of tackling ageism on the individual helps remove attention from their embedded practices, policies, political systems and decision-making processes contributing to pervasive ageist attitudes within the workplace. Structural ageism often reflects deliberate and conscious decisions organisations have taken to secure short term performance and long- term sustainability.
A major contributor to structural ageism is in how organisations choose to describe the characteristics that guide their business and the public image they seek to project. Modern organisations often like to describe themselves using terms such as ‘responsive’, ‘creative’, ‘innovative’, ‘driven’, ‘change orientated’ and ‘passionate’ coincidentally language also used to characterise the attributes of ‘youth’. The public projection of a youth-based organisation identity becomes important in instilling a confidence with external stakeholders that an organisation possesses the requisite attitudes, capabilities and energy to successfully sustain the business into the future and therefore a willingness to personally invest either capital, labour or time into ensuring the organisation’s ongoing success and continuity.
This deliberate way corporations seek to publicly position themselves sees espoused values and capabilities become translated into recruitment, promotion, reward, career and recognition processes and practices. To the extent an organisation chooses to reflect outlooks, attitudes, behaviours and capabilities most associated with ‘younger’ generations begins to consciously lock a structural age bias into its everyday operation and decision-making processes.
A very practical example of conscious structural ageism is how many large organisations understand the meaning of talent. No modern self-respecting business is without a talent management function these days usually overseen by HR. Research has demonstrated HR professionals deliberately understand talent as a descriptor that applies to younger but not older workers for reasons underpinning organisation continuity and social compliance. A fascinating aspect of the research is that whilst the interviewed HR participants all personally understand talent in inclusive terms which embraces the older worker, in their professional capacity they reinforce exclusive talent management systems that ignore the older worker. In a corporate setting HR managers understand their individual interest is better served in acting in a way contrary to their personal beliefs.
This highlights a powerful insight into the limited effectiveness of ‘unconscious bias’ or anti-ageism training within institutional structures – the constraint on freedom to act. Individuals operating within organisations are often characterised as exercising mindful cognition influenced by self-interest considerations and social identity needs. Individuals make deliberate choices that allow them to strategically navigate their operating environment.
In this instance for example the question would be how willing might a HR person after attending a training programme on tackling age bias then be to upturn an ageist talent management system? Operating with mindful cognition, if the individual perceived the personal risk as greater than the possible reward of challenging structural ageism, then the existing talent system would be likely supported despite the individual understanding the inherent bias built into it.
The inability of in many cases a perfunctory 30- or 60-minute unconscious bias training session to change individual behaviour recognises the powerful influence the prevailing rules, regulations, laws, and culture that govern social institutions have in framing the beliefs and actions of individuals. You can understand the risk of employee cynicism towards an organisation’s espoused commitment to diversity outcomes if there is the perception unconscious bias training sessions appear like purely an item on a checklist to boost a company’s image. Eliminating organisation- based ageism we argue requires prioritisation of tackling its structural elements before investing in individual training initiatives to change behaviour.
Until organisations are encouraged to review the structural contributors to ageism embedded within their policies, practices and decision-making processes then we maintain any meaningful return on investment in providing ‘unconscious bias’ or ‘anti-ageism’ training is significantly compromised.
If the above discussion has made you reflect on your workplace dynamics, please contact us and let us help you take practical steps to transform your existing workplace into an inclusive age neutral one that develops your competitive and performance capability.
References
AHRI (2023): The state of diversity, equity and inclusion in Australian workplaces.
AHRI (2021): Employing and retaining older workers.
Applewhite, A. (2019) This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Ageism; Melville House, UK
Australian Human Rights Commission (2021): What’s age got to do with it? A snapshot of ageism across the Australian lifespan
Australian Human Rights Commission (2023): Changing perspectives: testing an ageism intervention.
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Hessell, T (2021). ‘Talent and Age: How Do Human Resource Manager Meanings of Talent Influence Their Perceptions of Older Workers?’ PhD Thesis. University of Newcastle.
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Ro, C. (2021). The complicated battle over unconscious bias training. The BBC (29th March). https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20210326-the-complicated-battle-over-unconscious-bias-training
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