Age Discrimination

Age Discrimination

Introduction

Imagine not achieving the financial status needed to retire, or the possibility of a hardship in life that requires working beyond the standard age of retirement. Then again, maybe a person takes pride in his or her work and has a sense of self-fulfillment, but he or she is being squeezed out of the work place to bring in a younger generation. Who or what is going to ensure that the older workforces are protected? Are employers required to keep employees if they deem them to old for the job, or, better yet, what are the employer's responsibilities? These are only a few of the points that will be discussed in regards to employing older people.

        Age discrimination occurs for a variety of reasons. Companies may dismiss older workers because they are paid the highest salaries, or because the business wants to promote a "young" image with younger workers, or moreover, because employers think younger employees will work for less money and be more flexible. When it comes to these issues, older employees need some laws to protect them and give them equal rights in the workplace. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the current policies and workplace inclusion theory in Life Care Organisation. For this purpose, human resource manager will be interviewed, and organization approach to current diversity theories and policies will be analyzed.

Evaluation of Current Policies and Workplace Inclusion Theories

According to the interview results the average age of nurses in Life Care is 50 years old which fall into the generation of baby boomers and are now considered as older workers. There is biological evidence that human mental capabilities will decrease from when they are aged 20 to 70. According to Arkin (2006), research has shown that participation in work- related learning drops sharply for older workers especially for those who reach their 50s. Thus, given a shift in Life Care into a new computer based system, it is reasonable to assume that this change into computerised system would be particularly difficult for the nurses whose work practices and work ethics were developed during a time when the data processing used to be handled manually (Pillay et al. 2003).

The human resource manager further identified that majority of older nurses most of the times face problems in carrying out computer related task. However, he added that the they have initiated training programs but older employees are finding it really tough to get familiar with the computers. Previous research has shown that computer-based work tends to increase cognitive load and hence the use of working memory, which also shows a decline with age (Birdi & Zaph 1997). Beside that, older workers take longer to adapt to a new system of working and they are also less likely to be initially familiar with computers (Warr cited in Birdi & Zaph 1997). According to Bandalos and Benson cited in Birdi & Zaph (1997), the lack of experience with computers can make older workers more apprehensive about working with them and ...