The problem a work ageism It is gradually entering companies and institutions. In Catalonia, the lawyer Tirso Gracia one of the strongest voices against this type of discrimination based on age. In this interview, the founder and managing partner of the shop Legal Galibierespecially in labor law, and the Carlos III Award for Legal Excellence 2021, denouncing the reasons behind widespread practice and proposing solutions to stop it.
Let’s start with the basics: why do companies start laying off workers after the age of 50?
Basically, because there is a cultural fact, almost a cultural DNA, that makes us think that older people don’t have the technical skills that jobs need right now. I call it unconscious ageism. This is thought to be largely due to digitalisation. This is a stereotype that harms the elderly and benefits the young, and leads us to the false belief that they are more qualified just because they are older.
But getting rid of this human capital is against the interests of any company.
Yes, that’s why I like to talk experts in knowledgeexperts in knowledge. The most important element that seniors have in an organization, apart from their knowledge, is their experience, a different reality that they can contribute to the company. At a time when companies have shorter strategic cycles, the fact that we find people who have lived through several cycles in the same organization is an essential element for new generations. We must be aware that the loss of a person with that value who is sent out of the company at the age of 55 or 58 has several disadvantages. First, the cost of another person’s replacement in that place. It is estimated that this cost represents about 20% of the leaver’s salary. But, in addition, the person who resets himself does so with a loss of knowledge of the person who replaced him! Although we have digital systems, intuition, knowledge of the market, the global vision of the company, the sensible response and the considered decision, together with having experienced similar situations in a company…
Then the basic thing is a change of mind.
We will find young managers who are highly prepared, with languages, with new methods, with a lot of theoretical information and not so much practical in the sector or the company, and who come to him with the aim of achieving good results. But it is only a focus on short-term perspective results that allows, and even causes, the removal of wage costs from workers. experts in knowledge which, as a result of this approach, is considered unnecessary. For this reason, people who are rich in knowledge are often ignored. Knowledge is a long-term guarantee, and its loss is a challenge to the loss of the company’s value. We have to ask ourselves, why in traditional societies those who made community decisions were the elders, emphasizing the value of being experts in knowledge.
But could young managers change their minds?
Young people also have an integrated stereotype that older people must be replaced in a group just because they are older. That seems to me to be a fundamental element to highlight. In recent years, the same focus has been on protection against discrimination in the business world, basically for policy reasons, on gender equality and LGBTI equality, but not this protection exists for age discrimination. It would be an emotional step to do so, because it would, on the one hand, be a measure that would stop the loss of knowledge, and on the other hand, we would understand that it is not enough to train and integrate new people, recruited from business schools, to achieve greater efficiency, as this will not be achieved, without adding that knowledge that you already have in your own organization. This lack must be reconciled with a change in management mentality, above all, from a strategic point of view and human resources, which allows generations to be united in work groups that lead to decisions.
Is there discrimination only when resigning or also when hiring?
There is an interesting study done by Iseak in the Basque Country. Two identical profiles were created on Linkedin with the same age difference and the gap between them was found to be 50%. Employers blindly opened a 35-year-old’s profile twice as often as a 50-year-old’s profile. Furthermore, on the other hand, it is estimated that 40% of human resources departments discard those over 55 without assessing skills or experience.
Another cliché: older people get sicker and take more sick leave.
Another false belief. Just as older people have more anxiety, absenteeism from work, or less involvement. We need to separate age from disease and keep older people in strategic projects regardless of their age. This belief that I will not train them or engage them in new projects or for new projects, because they have fewer years left to develop, is a false belief, because, if we think about it, more risk in involving young people in new projects. of losses, due to the inertia of the recruitment market itself, which forces them to change companies and to bring all their knowledge to another company that could even be a competitor. We have to retrain the best, and at the same time think about taking advantage of the situations of the elderly, because they tend to be more loyal and committed, and because of the compensatory effect of seniority in Spain , each time, with age, e. it will be more difficult for them as well as changing company. We must also be careful with ageist language, avoiding phrases like “we need young blood” to focus on organizational change, when doing so leads to a loss of knowledge and opportunities, or phrases like “carca”, “that one is old. “, “trigger”…
Sometimes he has suggested rethinking the seniority-based pay system.
With the truth about paying seniority, that is, not paying for what one contributes, but for the time spent in a company regardless the performancepreferably by making workers older, rather than more experienced. The concept of seniority is always promoted by unions, not realizing that it does a disservice to older people because it is unequal to them in the workplace simply because of their age.
He has also criticized incentives for early retirement, especially in large companies. Many times encouraged by the governments themselves.
There has been an institutional coalition between governments, unions and business groups to facilitate early retirement. It is, in my opinion, another mistake that arises from that unconscious prejudice. Putting someone out of work because of their advanced age has social benefits, as it improves the accumulation of retirement years. I will also tell you that I do not like the idea of establishing minimum quotas to favor discriminatory groups, because it could mean choosing poorly qualified people to take up a position just because of age and that is unfair. Setting quotas is still discriminatory. Another thing is tax incentives, which are elements that always help to raise awareness. The combination of self-employment activity with retirement should also be enabled, helping the administrations to exclude those people from the labor market due to their age, but with full work capacity. , which is still a solution, to create employment and economic activity. , with self-employment or entrepreneurship activities since they are experts in knowledge with full potential, so that they contribute to society as much as they can and like. In short, we need to carry out very important awareness campaigns in business organizations and also demand that public companies set an example, guarantee knowledge, and turn around the cultural stereotype of ageism.
What is the legal response to these cases?
The cultural stereotype is so powerful that social prejudice means that judges also suffer from this discrimination. But not only them, most lawyers do not think that age is a reason for many dismissals, and they are still calm about it, without showing it to the courts. There are very few findings on age discrimination. The most recent one comes from the Supreme Court in September 2023. The ruling shows that in a company with only 11% of people over 50 years old, an old man was chosen to be shot from a compartment containing seven people. Out of the seven, only one was over 50 years old and, coincidentally, this was the one who received a blessing.
Are measures being taken at European level?
In France, the public employment service sends applications to companies based on skills only, it does not indicate age. In the Netherlands, awareness campaigns have been carried out and there is a leaflet for companies that reduce age discrimination. But they are very isolated elements. We must encourage all companies to implement employee performance evaluation systems, regardless of their age, but also with the training they have been receiving in recent years, because , from the age of 45, the stereotype begins to influence us to accept and confuse.
How will artificial intelligence influence this debate?
I hope it helps us to discriminate. That is, it allows us to focus on what the person can contribute without considering gender, origin, race, religion… AI can help us find the best candidates regardless regardless of their personal circumstances.
2024-10-19 10:27:00
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