Should ageism be addressed from the top down or the bottom up? In tech SaaS sales, there’s a perennial conversation about whether the “top-down” or “bottoms-up” approach is better. The former sells to the highest levels of an organization like the procurement department, which will then distribute or even mandate the product’s use down through the organization. Conversely, the bottoms-up approach encourages adoption throughout the lower levels of the company, and depends on almost viral socialization of the product up the levels. Which would be most effective in eliminating ageism in the workplace?
The bottoms-up approach means each of us must do what we can to call attention to ageism and educate those we come in contact with. Certainly, ageism feels very personal when it affects you and you want to do what you can to fight it. Plenty of individuals are fighting that battle. But, similar to what has happened with anti-racism, over the years the bottoms-up approach hasn’t made a significant impact. It’s time for more structural change. The same is true for workplace ageism. Happily, a group of individuals has organized to take up the challenge to educate and train those in corporations and organizations about age bias: the Age Equity Alliance (AEA).
The brainchild of ageism activists like Ashton Applewhite, Sheila Callaham, and others, AEA is being built from the ground up. I’ve been following AEA since it was a Slack workgroup, a rough collection of volunteers with an interest in ageism, banding together to try to create a cohesive organization. Over the last six months, it has progressed from baby organizational issues (ranging from becoming a 501c3 to designing a logo) to this month conducting its first training event.
AEA articulates its mission like this: “Our global team is committed to partnering side-by-side with communities, organizations, and business leaders to ensure age equity in the workplace, and to leverage the diversity of thought, experience, and cognitive thinking that benefits us all.” Hard to argue with that!
AEA’s first training session was held via Zoom for a community resource in York County, PA, earlier this month. Attendees were local individuals, organizations and businesses. I have no doubt that as AEA gains steam, it’ll begin to move upstream into many more communities and corporations. You can learn more about the education/training curriculum here. I particularly love that it covers “How to Add Age to Your Diversity & Inclusion Strategy” because age seems to be neglected in these programs, and “Unconscious Age Bias and Stereotyping; How to Build an Age-Inclusive Workplace” because I believe few training programs cover this.
Tech companies, where ageism is especially prevalent, are ripe for this type of training. Unfortunately, these companies also have clear race and gender underrepresentation. Admittedly, age bias is a huge category to add to these diversity and inclusion programs. But AEA is a resource that can address this efficiently.
Want to get involved with AEA? You can sign up for the monthly newsletter here and follow on LinkedIn here. And if you happen to be a website designer, they’re currently looking for a volunteer (reach out here).
Top-down or bottoms-up to fight age bias? Ultimately, we’ll need both! The bottoms-up effort depends on each of us. But the entry of AEA into the arena is an important step forward in having the top-down efforts gain momentum.