It is very important to avoid discrimination in team building, even if you are tempted to make an example with those connotations. (For example, men against women, young against old in a team). What can help is to employ some exercises intended to discuss diversity in the workplace. In these activities you will be able to address age discrimination and your company’s equality policies.

Activities for age diversity

Workers must be taught how to deal with age discrimination on several different levels. Consider some activities that can help address this issue, while still being sensitive. First, ask your group to think of as many examples of ageism phrases that occasionally come up in casual conversation. Remind your team that such phrases should not be used, as they are rude and can directly or indirectly contribute to ageism. One should especially caution against bullying, as it is illegal and could cause someone serious legal trouble.

Another activity to try is to ask members to think of examples of ageism, either real or hypothetical. These instances can be within the organization or from other organizations, or even past experiences. These experiences can range from job profiles that specify an age limit, applications that require a date of birth, training criteria that differentiate between ages, attitudes reflected in job promotions, office traditions that involve who should run mundane errands based on age or inappropriate. joke.

Finally, you can ask your group to consider the advantages of having a diverse organization in everything from age to race and ethnicity. Advantages could include that various organizations have an advantage in targeting a diverse group of customers. Diverse management teams can better interact with a diverse workforce and with customers. Diverse companies have more answers than companies that lack diversity and only have textbook knowledge. Finally, many companies have a complete view of the world and the business, unlike companies that have a narrow focus due to age discrimination.

Teaching your team about ageism

It is very important that the teacher is an expert in politically correct speech. Yes, it may not belong on the pay cable networks, but it definitely belongs in the workplace. A teacher must be very attentive to expressions that inadvertently discriminate against or generalize a group of people based on their age, race, or any other superficial factor. Such statements may seem deceptively harmless; even implying that a worker is sick but experienced (a backhanded compliment) can be a statement of age discrimination. It’s equally important to avoid racism and sexism, as friendly competition can easily turn into humorous small talk, which can further disintegrate into petty jokes about a person’s gender or race.

While it’s hard to remember all the PC expressions out there, remember that generalities are often insensitive. The general idea of ​​business is to focus on the exact thing and not be too general in your thinking. This is particularly true when considering the value of each and every team member.