Janine: The workplace is one of the most important areas where we need to confront ageism. Personally, I had no idea of the depth and breadth of ageism until I started leading Changing the Narrative. Every time I do a presentation or workshop, there are inevitably people who come up to me afterward and say, "I experienced that,” or “My partner is experiencing that,” or “My dad is experiencing that." A recent AARP survey found nearly two out of three workers ages 45 and older have seen or experienced age discrimination on the job. So, we know it's fairly prevalent. Despite this, there are worker shortages throughout Colorado.

Janine: One of the things that people often say is, “If people stay in the workplace as they get older, they are taking jobs away from younger workers,” when the opposite is true. In fact, a recent Stanford University study specifically looked at this claim of older workers crowding out younger workers and dispelled this myth.

We need to inform our community about Stanford’s findings, and also let them know that older adults in the workforce can be great mentors and provide institutional knowledge. Any of us armed with these facts can spread the word and create a shift in people’s thinking.

Janine: We’re starting to make the business case for hiring older workers and for multi-generational workforces. We’ve put together a briefing about our findings and are starting to make presentations to chambers of commerce, human resources departments, and various clubs across the state. We’re also sharing research to show how multi-generational workforces are more productive and more profitable, and what steps companies can take to leverage this resource.

There are many old policies and procedures that businesses can change. It can be as simple as to stop asking what year a candidate graduated from high school on job applications, for example. This type of tactic prevents people from being screened out because of their age and helps to reduce the implicit bias of ageism in general. Most companies now have diversity, equity, and inclusivity strategies, but for many of them, ageism isn’t included in this mix. When we meet with HR professionals, we ask if they are promoting age diversity as well.

Janine: A number of studies show that ageism has negative impacts on physical health, mental health, and memory for older people. As people age and their health deteriorates, studies show that they often feel worse about themselves and have lower self-esteem, especially when exposed to ageism from the people around them. Older adults tend to internalize ageism when they experience it and start defining themselves with their own ageist language, saying things like, “I’m having a senior moment,” or “I can’t do that anymore.” This kind of thinking can lead to blocking personal growth, especially if combined with exposure to ageism.

Yale School of Public Health just released a study that found that widespread prejudice directed toward older adults in relation to healthcare and wellbeing have led to tremendous costs – to the tune of more than $63 billion annually for a broad range of health conditions.

Also, for younger people who sometimes have to leave the workforce to care for an aging parent, there can be horrendous negative impacts on their financial security. Anyone who leaves the workforce, no matter what their age, often has a hard time getting back in to it and when they do, they are frequently earning less than when they left.

Janine: CTN’s primary tactics are workshops and reframing. We want to be the catalyst for intergenerational conversations about ageism, and these always start with the words we speak and write. We have a training workshop on evidence-based language that outlines which words to use and which not to use, setting forth the language that advances a more productive public conversation about aging and how to think about ageism in general. For example, avoiding words like “senior,” and “senior citizen,” and, my dreaded favorite, “silver tsunami.” We conducted over 40 workshops across Colorado this year, and we'll be doing many more in 2019.

Our second tactic is community organizing. We have volunteers called “Change AGEnts,” who do all kinds of outreach. They mobilize older adults in various ways from helping them to understand what ageism is and helping them to have a more positive view about aging in general, to throwing fun house parties that help educate everyone about ageism at the grassroots level. Essentially, anyone can download a how-to kit and throw an organized get-together where there are games and other activities.

The Holiday Project is our soft launch for the house parties, which work especially well at family and neighborhood gatherings like Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s, when multiple generations are together under one roof. We provide a short series of questions that get everyone involved around the theme: have you ever experienced prejudice because of your age? This is asked of everyone, whether they are young or old. Sometimes, young people feel underestimated in school or in the workplace. Millennials often resent that older people see themselves as “entitled.”

When everyone shares their experiences in that light and hears other’s stories, they become much more understanding about the ageism that older adults feel. This helps everyone become more sensitive and inspired to help fight ageism in their communities and where they work. We end with the question: what do we all have in common? Everyone finds that they mostly want the same things, from meaning and purpose to respect and flexibility and that they have more in common than they thought. Finally, everyone asks each other and themselves: what can we do in our own lives to address ageism? Then, they can take photos, post on Facebook,and share the meaningful comments and takeaways that came out of the party.

One of our Change AGEnts who has been talking with friends about ageism recently had a birthday party, and, for the first time, did not receive a single one of those awful ageist birthday cards that say things like, “It’s all downhill from here.” With results like that and after facilitating outreach to over 1,300 people through many meetings and parties, we think we’re making progress!

Janine: What we’re doing is building a movement and creating cultural change. Your readers can do a number of things like watch the Applewhite TED talk and examine their own language and consider removing ageist words from their vocabularies. They can also start telling different stories about older people – less about their struggles and more about their successes. Another way to help out is to meet with their HR managers at work to discuss cultural changes within their companies. We’re doing podcasts, newspaper articles, blogs, and television and radio interviews to get the word out. Sharing our information on social media helps us to get the word out as well. The good news is that there are concrete things we can do to overcome ageism, and that’s the purpose of Changing the Narrative: to create a more just, inclusive, and age-integrated Colorado.