Addressing age-related prejudices essential to improving diversity of thought

The behaviours and attitudes held by different age groups towards technology in the industry hold valuable lessons for shaping modern workplaces.

That was according to Jonny Briggs, diversity, inclusion and resourcing director at Aviva, who addressed delegates during a panel session at the Dive In festival entitled Generation Flex: Adapting Work for All Ages last week (26 September 2024).

He explained: “Everyone [in the diversity, equality and inclusion space] generally talks about diversity of thought, but that comes from different generations. It comes from your different experiences, from what you bring into the workplace.”

Diversity of thought refers to inclusion of different points of view within an organisation and is distinct from, but related to, diversity of other protected characteristics, such as gender or ethnicity.

Christina Colby, chief customer officer at Guidewire Software, agreed that embracing different generations’ perspectives could lead to advantages. 

She explained: “That fresh perspective, coupled with [an employee’s ] degree of experience, can help to create some forward-thinking ideas.

”However, the important thing to highlight is that experience doesn’t have to follow the sequence that everyone expects.

“There can be some really impactful and innovative ideas from people with backgrounds that are less traditional.

“We tend to be open-minded about people moving between industries and we value the fresh perspectives they bring.

“But there’s also something uniquely impactful about someone being plucked out of what would normally be a well-defined career path to do something different.”

Age-related prejudice

While diversity and inclusion around age can create positive experiences, Briggs also noted that age-related prejudices are often overlooked within organisations.

He explained: “There’s unquestionable prejudice around age that we’re just not discussing.

“We can let it go [by thinking] ’Well, if it’s not gender [and] not ethnicity, then we can move on,’ but it just holds us all back.”

Colby added: “One of the things we see most often is a considerable amount of bias associated with different generations.

“We find this both in attracting talent within our own organisation and in the systems we build and make available for insurers.

”It relates to everything, from the notion that everyone from Gen Z is digitally driven and only wants to do things online, to the opposite end, where we have an industry with aging technology solutions.”

She also noted the challenges of retaining staff that had knowledge of business-critical legacy systems, but added that it was also essential for younger staff to not be passed over for training on technologies with a shorter lifespan.

“We really need to look at individual patterns and behaviours, considering personas based on true usage, rather than tying them to specific age groups,” she finished.