Older Does Not Mean Less Wise

At a consulting company that I worked for, there have been a team of designated billers, known as Project Assistants, that have been billing all of the clients since about 2011/2012. Prior to the centralization of the billing process, the local Executive Assistants had the responsibility of billing clients for those managers that they supported on a monthly basis. One biller has worked for the company for over 20 years when they implemented a new type of software. This software would handle billing clients, paying vendors, keeping track of time for the consultants and so on. It was a much more current and complex software that the company had needed to upgrade for a number of years. During the implementation process, each level of staff involved had multiple training sessions and opportunities to help work out the system glitches before a complete roll out was set. For those support staff members that were not involved in day-to-day billing, collecting, etc., the transition to the new system was seamless. For those in areas that used this new software, it was quite cumbersome. Management began to identify billing staff that were not as tech-savvy and did not adapt as quickly to the fast-paced software changes.

In this scenario, some of the billing staff could be facing age discrimination at work. Age discrimination involves treating individuals differently or unfairly based on their age, which is prohibited by employment laws in many countries, including the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) in the United States. It could be argued that older staff need additional training for the new fast-paced software, but instead are met with the alternative of being terminated. Instead of terminating older employees for their lack of quick comprehension, it would be great if the company would either offer them a little extra time in training, or allow them to transition to another role. Many times, when an employee is older and has been with a company for that many years, they are already planning their imminent retirement. Allowing them to retire on their time, if you know it is around the corner, can often be seen as a more compassionate route.