William J. Milani, Member of the Firm in the Employment, Labor & Workforce Management practice, in the firm’s New York office, was quoted in SHRM.org, in “Hiring in the Age of Ageism,” by Kate Rockwood.
Following is an excerpt:
Consider it a major disconnect in hiring: On the one hand, many recruiters put a premium on “high-performers” with “proven experience,” while on the other they are increasingly looking for “digital natives”—members of the demographic raised in the age of online technology and thus by definition too new to the workforce to have proved much of anything.
Indeed, as employers’ desire to snag tech-savvy Millennial workers reaches a fever pitch, you may notice a shift in hiring managers’ vocabulary (or even your own), away from “experienced” and “seasoned” and toward “high-potential” and “energetic.” …
Age discrimination occurs outside of hiring situations as well. Employees can encounter implicit bias when they voice an interest in earning advanced degrees in their 40s or 50s, for example. …
And think twice before initiating any kind of layoff that disproportionately affects those with a long tenure at your company. “In my experience, termination decisions are the most frequently challenged decisions in terms of age discrimination, given the impact on the individual,” says William Milani, vice chair of the board of directors at Epstein Becker Green, a New York City law firm with 600 employees.
Any time you must oversee a large reduction in force, carefully review the selection process to determine whether the proposed terminations might have a disparate impact on one group. “You have to examine whether an argument could be made that there’s statistical significance to selection processes that adversely affect older workers,” Milani says.