23/06/2020 Video Transcript

Age Discrimination

Ed Evarts

There is no place for discrimination in the workplace. Not only is discrimination

illegal, but it also really denies teams the richness that comes from the
diversity of opinions, the diversity of experience, and the diversity of skill sets.
So, in this particular case, Calkins is clearly in the wrong by suggesting that
Franks cannot be a member of his team because of what appears to be his
perception of his age.

Moving Calkins to another opportunity is really not the best strategy because
in many ways, that's just putting a Band-Aid on a problem. There's nothing to
say that he won't continue this behavior elsewhere in ways that create
increasing problems in risk and liability for the organization.

The second solution is really the one that's closest to the best, and in this
particular situation, you're going to do a few things. You're going to suggest to
Calkins--and really instruct to Calkins--that the process will start over, and in
starting the process over, you're going to do a couple of things. You're going
to redefine the criteria needed to be successful on the team and do so in ways
that's very clear and objective, and then people will be measured against very
clear and objective criteria. He's going to do this development of this criteria
with others, so it's not just himself. And a great organization to do this work
with is your HR organization.

And then lastly, the organization's going to suggest that Calkins--and again,
not suggest, but require Calkins--to attend some type of external diversity
training. It's clearly obvious in this case that he is not knowledgeable on the
impact of this type of discrimination in the workplace, and increased
knowledge for him can be very helpful not only to him as a leader, but also in
respect to the organization and the way that the organization's expecting its
leaders to manage.

So again, restarting this process of selecting the team with objective criteria
that's created with HR, as well as sending Calkins to some type of external
training to help build his awareness of diversity are all great strategies to help
get this situation back on track.

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