Age
Duration: 90-minute session focusing on a single topic
Overview
This class explores age-based discrimination regarding both older and younger people at work. It will cover common unconscious biases and potential changes that businesses can make to improve the inclusion of younger and older people at work.
Topics Covered
- Defining ageism
- Age-based stereotypes
- Age and intersectionality
- Inclusive policies
- Inclusive language and interpersonal behaviours
- Q&A
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Age
Age is one of the characteristics we all have, yet it’s still one of the most misunderstood when it comes to workplace inclusion and fair treatment. In our work with organisations, we regularly see how assumptions about someone being “too young” or “past it” can creep into decisions about recruitment, development, performance, and even day-to-day respect. That’s why we treat age as a core Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) topic, rather than a side issue.
When people search for phrases like “age discrimination”, “age discrimination examples”, or “age discrimination in the workplace”, they’re often trying to sense-check what’s happening in their organisation or build a stronger approach as a leader. We also see confusion around terms like the “age discrimination act”. In the UK, the key legal framework that covers age as a protected characteristic is the Equality Act 2010, and understanding that foundation helps HR teams and managers handle concerns with clarity and consistency.
In this course, we’re sharing practical, real-world ways to understand age discrimination, spot it early, and improve inclusion for both younger and older colleagues. This is grounded in our experience delivering training that tackles age-based discrimination and unconscious bias at work, and it aligns with the topics we cover in our dedicated Age session (including age-based stereotypes, intersectionality, inclusive policies, and inclusive language and behaviours).
What age discrimination looks like
Age discrimination is unfair treatment connected to someone’s age, and it can affect younger and older people alike. In the workplace, it tends to show up in a few predictable areas: hiring, promotion, training access, performance management, redundancy decisions, and workplace culture.
Under the Equality Act 2010, age discrimination protections apply across employment, including when someone is applying for a job and during employment. Importantly, age is slightly different from some other protected characteristics because there is a specific concept of “objective justification” that can apply in limited cases, meaning an employer may argue a proportionate, legitimate reason for an age-based decision.
In day-to-day organisational life, the risk isn’t always a clearly “bad actor” making an openly ageist comment. More often, it’s small, repeated decisions based on stereotypes; who gets picked for stretch projects, who is assumed to be digitally confident, who is treated as leadership material, or whose potential is overlooked. Our Age training is designed to help teams recognise those patterns and replace them with fairer habits and inclusive behaviours.
The “Age Discrimination Act” question
We’re often asked about the “age discrimination act”, so it’s worth clearing up carefully. In the UK context, the main legislation you’ll usually be working from for age discrimination is the Equality Act 2010, which includes provisions relating to age discrimination (including in services and public functions, as well as in employment contexts more broadly).
If you’re writing internal guidance, reviewing policies, or training managers, using the correct legal reference matters because it keeps your documentation consistent and reduces confusion when issues escalate. It also helps you align internal processes, like recruitment frameworks, performance management, and learning and development access, to the same core principles.
Where organisations can get stuck is treating “compliance” like a tick-box exercise. In our sessions we focus on what fairness looks like in real working situations, because that’s where culture changes and risks reduce in a meaningful way.
Age discrimination in the workplace: where it hides
Age discrimination in the workplace often hides in processes that look neutral on the surface. For example, a promotion process that relies heavily on “culture fit” or informal sponsorship can disadvantage anyone who isn’t part of the dominant age group in leadership, whether that’s younger employees locked out of credibility or older employees overlooked for future-focused projects.
It can also show up in the way organisations design flexibility and wellbeing support. If flexibility is implicitly framed as something “older staff need” or wellbeing is positioned as “a younger generation issue”, it risks stereotyping and can stop people asking for what they genuinely need. We take a whole-organisation view in our training because inclusive policies only work when inclusive behaviours support them in practice.
Intersectionality matters as well: age doesn’t operate in isolation from disability, race, gender, or socio-economic background. In our Age session we explicitly include age and intersectionality so teams don’t default to one-size-fits-all assumptions that miss the real experience of individuals.
What employers and leaders can do
Organisations don’t usually need more “statements”; they need practical, repeatable actions that managers can actually apply. That’s why our approach focuses on realistic policy and behaviour changes that improve inclusion for younger and older colleagues at the same time.
Here are steps we commonly recommend as part of improving age inclusion:
- Review job adverts and role criteria for age-coded language and unnecessary requirements, then standardise shortlisting against the skills that truly predict performance
- Train managers on age-based stereotypes, inclusive language, and interpersonal behaviours so they can address issues early and consistently
- Audit access to development opportunities (acting-up roles, stretch projects, leadership programmes) to check whether certain age groups are being informally prioritised or overlooked
- Build clearer, fairer processes and then support them with learning – this bitesize class is a 90-minute session designed specifically to explore age-based discrimination, unconscious bias, and changes businesses can make to improve inclusion.
For organisations that want to go further, we also support wider EDI training and bespoke services, using needs analysis to shape what will actually work for your teams. This matters because age inclusion is rarely solved by one policy change; it’s usually a combination of capability, confidence, and shared expectations.
Getting support with age inclusion
If you’re dealing with concerns, planning an inclusion programme, or updating manager capability, we can help you address age in a way that is practical and grounded in working reality. Our Age session covers defining ageism, stereotypes, intersectionality, inclusive policies, and inclusive language and behaviours, with time for Q&A so teams can apply it to real scenarios.
Because we’re a Community Interest Company with a strong social purpose, our work is rooted in creating workplaces where people are valued and respected, and we reinvest profits to support marginalised individuals. We also bring over 20 years of experience across EDI training and consultancy, which helps us guide organisations through both the human and organisational sides of change.
If you’d like, tell us what type of organisation you’re writing this for (sector, approximate headcount, and whether the main risk is recruitment, progression, or culture), and we’ll tailor the course to match your priorities.
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