Inclusive Recruitment Messaging Across Multiple Generations

Welcome to Hire Potential with Indeed, a series of fireside chats with experts in diversity and inclusion, employer branding, recruiting, HR and more.

In today’s tight labour market, it’s important for companies to create a recruitment message that is inclusive of all generations in the workforce. Not only can this help open up their candidate pool, but studies show that companies with age-diverse teams see higher productivity and increased performance, especially when complex decision-making tasks need to be performed. However, with only 8% of organisations including age as part of their D&I strategies, it seems many companies still have a long way to go to create a truly diverse and inclusive work environment that is welcoming of all ages.

In this episode, we talk with Lisa Loney, Manager, Gender Equity, Inclusion, and Access at Deakin University about the importance of creating an inclusive recruiting message across multiple generations, and what changes employers and recruiters can start

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Prologue

Erin: Welcome to Hire Potential with Indeed. A welcoming workplace is built from the ground up with attention to diversity, inclusion, accessibility and openness. But the way many leaders and companies approach this is full of gray areas, uncertainty and quite often, fear. Hire Potential with Indeed is here to demystify the process through the most powerful channel possible, conversations, groundbreaking ones, too. 

I'm your host, Erin Waddell, strategic insights consultant and D&I evangelist in Australia for Indeed. I've worked in the recruitment industry in Australia for the last seven years and have been in Australia for 10 years. 

In this podcast series will tackle the issues we face in the modern workplace, from diversity and inclusion to remote working, accessibility, fair hiring practices and more. This podcast is an initiative of indeed.com, the world's number one job site with over 250 million unique visitors every month from over 60 different countries. 

Introduction

Erin: Before we dive in, I wish to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land in which we are meeting today and to any Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islanders who may be listening. I pay my respects to their elders, past, present and emerging.

In this week's episode, we'll be discussing the importance of inclusive recruitment messaging across multiple generations. In today's tight labour market, it's important for companies to create a recruitment message that is inclusive of all generations in the workforce. Not only can this help open up their candidate pool, but studies show that companies with age diverse teams see higher productivity and increased performance, especially when complex decision-making tasks need to be performed.

However, with only 8% of organisations, including age as part of their D&I strategies, it seems many companies still have a long way to go to create a truly diverse and inclusive work environment that is welcoming of all ages. In this episode, we talk about the importance of creating an inclusive recruiting message across multiple generations. And what changes employers and recruiters can start to make to their recruiting efforts to help not only attract quality candidates of all ages, but also to make those candidates feel welcomed in the workplace.

Today, we are joined by Lisa Loney, Manager of Gender, Equity, Inclusion, and Access at Deakin University, to learn more about how creating an age inclusive recruitment message can bring many benefits to both organisations and their employees. Welcome, Lisa.

Lisa: Hi, Erin. Thank you. Thanks for having me today.

Erin: My pleasure. It's great to have you with us. Lisa, could you share a little bit with us about your role at Deakin University?

Lisa: Yeah, sure. My role as manager of gender, equity, inclusion, and access, it involves managing a team who are responsible for all the gender equity compliance reporting and implementation of legislative requirements particularly around gender equity, both state and federal. We also work with stakeholders across Deakin to roll out a range of actions and initiatives to promote an inclusive culture. A safe connected and inclusive Deakin community, and that goes across our staff and student cohorts. And our work really looks at inclusion from a few different perspectives. So, governance, policy and leadership, removing barriers and bias in systems and processes. And also, looking at the capability and competency of our people to behave in a truly inclusive manner. And also, the culture of the institution, as well.

We also do a lot of data and analysis, both qualitative and quantitative, because we need to know if what we're doing is working. And this also highlights any hotspots or opportunities. We also have a team that goes out to secondary schools that raise aspiration for higher education, and that's who are aimed at widening participation, specifically for low socio economic, Indigenous and regional and remote students.

Erin: Wow, that's a lot. That's great. Deakin is quite large, isn't it? 

Lisa: Yeah. Yeah, we have, I think it's around 4000 staff and 60,000 students.

Erin: That is a big institution to try to make sure that you're staying on top of gender, equity, and all of those inclusion factors. Wow. At a workplace each employee is a unique individual with different preferences, goals, skills, weaknesses, and ways of communicating. How does your team Deakin approach and acknowledge this?

Lisa: The key here, Erin, is really through a dedicated intersectional approach. What I mean by that is that we recognise, as you said that each person has a different set of attributes that they bring with them to work and study. This includes, not just those attributes that we're really familiar with, such as cultural background and gender and sexuality, differing abilities. But also, like you said, those different strengths, a different experience, a different background, and with that, a different perspective. Part of our work is around removing those barriers for groups who experience entrenched discrimination and bias. And also, if there's a systemic issue that discriminates against one particular group, chances are that other people are being disadvantaged by that, as well. So, removing the barrier is the most ideal solution.

But we also consider the capability and awareness of our people, including leaders in our organisation, around behaving in a manner that values all people, their differences, and allows them to contribute fully. Our division works to identify those key behaviors, skills, and attributes and help people develop those, for example, through unconscious bias training.

What unconscious bias is and why it’s important to recognise in the workplace

Erin: Yeah, unconscious bias training is increasingly important, I think, especially when it comes to the ageism piece that has started to gain a little more awareness. There's been a little more awareness gained in the industry, I think, which is a really good thing that it's becoming more of a topic of conversation. I think one of those areas of unconscious bias that can affect, especially recruiters, maybe some managers, but mainly recruiters is the use of age inclusive language in job descriptions. Can you describe what that is and why it's so important to pay attention to?

Lisa: Yeah, sure. I think age inclusive language really is around taking a step back. I think the first key to that is, what are the assumptions around age within the organisation? Before jumping in and writing a job description, or being able to analyse it fully. I think you need to step back and think about, what are those assumptions around age that are evident in this culture? Do we use language like boomers or millennials? And is that kind of language accepted? Because that will point to some of the bias that may come out through communication, such as job advertisements.

Firstly, the culture of the organisation, and what are those inherent beliefs and stereotypes around age that may come through the job advertisement? And also, the other really important point is that the Age Discrimination Act means that you can't discriminate on the basis of someone's age, it's illegal. It's against the law. Using language that has a bias for or against a particular age group is really risky. And so, we need to stay well clear from words such as young or mature, because they're quite explicit in describing the bias around what type of candidate that we may be looking for.

And other words can also imply a bias, depending on the context. So, energetic, enthusiastic, measured. Keeping language fairly neutral and not emotive is really useful, because emotive language can often be specific to a particular group. Avoid the use of jargon and acronyms for the same reason because jargon and acronyms in some industries, only more experienced people will be aware of. And then of course, jargon and acronyms in pop culture and so on, may be used by younger generation and someone who is more mature and experience may have no idea what that particular communication is getting at.

Erin: That's true. And I think that can also extend into the interview, as well, especially when it comes to the pop culture side of things. I'll just use an example, if you have a younger recruiter, interviewing someone that's older. There might be a gap between their pop culture knowledge and if someone asks a question around that in an interview, it could lead to an uncomfortable conversation. I think that that's something to look out for, as well. I think Unfortunately, many older workers are finding it more difficult to secure a new job. Often being told they are too experienced.

Our recent Indeed D&I survey did find that while 32% of 18- to 34-year-olds found a job within around three months, only 12% of 50- to 64-year-olds did so in such a short amount of time. That's a pretty big gap. What is the risk of overlooking older workers as too experienced? And what changes need to be made to combat this?

Lisa: I think in relation to being overqualified, that is a very objective view. That the person, the particular candidate, who is interested in applying for that job, needs to be given the opportunity to explain why they're keen on that role? Why their skills and experience may fit? And overqualified in itself, what does that actually mean? How are we defining what overqualified means? If someone's got the skills and experience to do the job, they've got the skills and experience to do the job, is there too many? Too much? Too much experience? I don't know that that's actually a thing.

In terms of combating that, I think, again, it comes back to basic diversity and inclusion principles. Being really open to other people's perspective and experience, sticking to the facts, and looking at a candidate’s application based on what are the skills and experience required, inherent to this role? And does this particular candidate have them or not? Really sticking to that, and being aware of our unconscious bias as well, because it is unconscious, that we do have an unconscious bias.

Trying to bring that to the fore, and understanding what our biases might be. Unconscious bias training, again, or awareness training is really important for that, because it will uncover some of those implicit biases that we may have around age, jumping to that stereotype that someone might be overqualified. Going back to the question about what's the risk of deeming someone as overqualified? You could be missing out on again, another staff member who has so much experience to bring, and so much richness to that particular role in the organisation.

How to show candidates of all ages that you’re working to bridge the skills gap

Erin: That's what I was going to say is think about what they could bring to the team to the culture, what their experiences could actually-- It could be such a way to elevate the company, the division that they're in. When you look at a resume and you see that experience, that's the piece that's not being thought about. I think that is where unconscious bias training is so important. And just to even start to understand what the inherent biases that there that exists, that we all have are. So that you do maybe think about things through that lens, or start to train yourself to think about things through that lens. That could even be a great first step.

We know that both older and younger workers bring unique experiences and perspectives to the workplace, just like we just talked about. How can companies show candidates of all ages that they are working to bridge the skills gap?

Lisa: Yeah, so I think initiatives such as mentoring programs are fantastic. A graduate mentoring program that pairs somebody up with a mentor that's got considerable experience is a really good two-way arrangement that imparts the knowledge that not only comes with experience, but as well as bringing in the latest theory from tertiary institutions and imparting that on more experienced work. I think we must think of mentoring programs as not just a one-way development program, that it is definitely two way.

There are other really purposeful programs that target those transitioning to retirement and early career staff members. And these are a great way, again, to develop those starting out in their career through the experience of more senior staff members, but also transferring that wealth of knowledge, that wealth of corporate knowledge that otherwise may walk out the door. You have a really experienced staff member that is heading towards retirement, perhaps by having a purposeful mentoring program, some of that corporate knowledge can be transferred. It's the things that you really can't learn from just sitting at your desk and going about your work in that normal way. So that mentoring relationships, fantastic.

Other informal ways to connect and learn are great too. I just think making sure that you're cognisant of age and other diversity, when you're developing learning and development programs or any other program around, even your communications as we talked about before. Just being really cognisant of age, diversity and other diversity generally.

Erin: That's great advice. One of the most important takeaways I have is That mentoring is a two-way street. There is just as much for the mentee to learn as there is for the mentor, as long as they both sort of have an understanding going into it. I think it is important to, especially when it comes to potentially the age side of things is to make sure that there is an ongoing conversation. Or maybe there's a group or events happening at the company, where everyone feels included, where everyone feels like, "Oh, they're not just doing this for the younger people. Or they're not just doing this event for the older people." How can we make sure everyone feels included, so that everyone feels like they belong? I think belonging is such a big key to the D&I piece.

And just coming into that belonging piece, unfortunately, there's many employees and candidates that are hiding their age at work and during their job search. Our survey found that 24% of 50 to 64-year-old workers in Australia are hiding their age at work. How do we best foster a culture that can celebrate workers of all ages and helps everyone feel comfortable to bring their true selves to work?

Lisa: Again, I'd like to go back to those basic belonging, principles of diversity and inclusion and making sure that language is really important in the workplace. Millennials, boomers this kind of language can be really exclusive and make somebody feel excluded. Being really cognisant of the language that's coming through in the workplace, what's being accepted, and what's not? Things like a diversity and inclusion strategy is a great place to start, as well. Being really purposeful about how you will foster that inclusive environment for everybody.

The diversity inclusion strategy, obviously linked very closely to the corporate strategy, and then through that, perhaps an action plan. If you want to focus on age diversity, you've got your guiding principles and your diversity and inclusion strategy, what are those actions that you will take to ensure that you are fostering age diversity, and that everybody feels welcome and as though they belong? It might be the mentoring program, it also might be informal lunch and learn sessions where people can come along and share personal stories, or they might share something about a project that they've worked on. But more of that informal get together, because we need to understand that unless we're creating these opportunities, as humans, we'll stick for like in our in-group. Men with men, women with women, through the age diversity, people with similar interests and passion. We need to be creating those opportunities for people to connect across the workforce.

Erin: Yep, I think you hit the nail on the head with affinity bias. We feel inherently more comfortable with people that are a lot like us. I think that that's something that can be a little bit uncomfortable at the beginning to try to break away from that, and to feel comfortable with speaking to people that are not just different from your own age. But maybe people from a different background, a different religion, a different culture. I think that that happens in almost every age and probably in almost every company. I think that's happening.

We've been in a pandemic now for quite some time. Experts have suggested that young people are more likely to be disproportionately impacted during an extended recession. In our recent Indeed survey, we did find that younger workers aged between 18 and 34 have felt more stress, anxiety, and loneliness in the workplace than older workers since the pandemic started. What has Deakin implemented to help address the issues and challenges that are currently faced by younger workers?

Lisa: One of the great things coming out of our human resources department has been a peer mentoring program and a connection program. Early on in the pandemic, we created informal Zoom dropping sessions where people could just come in and have a chat. Some of them had a topic, others were just free flowing. It created that opportunity for, again, people to connect not just a specific age group, but across ages where there was a common theme. A common interest on a particular topic.

Also, the peer mentoring sessions were rolled out for leaders. One of the biggest things in there was leading through change and inclusive leadership. Being really cognisant of the challenges that each individual's facing as part of the pandemic and through that, fostering an understanding that those who are in a younger age bracket will have a very different experience of those that may be faced in an older age bracket. Those living alone will have a very different experience to those living with a family, and the challenges that they bring to work because of that will be very different. Fostering that inclusive leadership to understand at the individual level, what people might be experiencing, empathising with that, and then also leading in a manner that helps people feel as though they belong.

Erin: Have you found that it's made a significant difference over time?

Lisa: It's been quite mixed in, and we recently did a diversity and inclusion survey. Interestingly, we found that across our staff cohort, it was about even in some people feeling more connected and some people feeling less connected. The reasons for that we think are Zoom. Often with Zoom, you can connect with other parts of the university that may not have been so easy to connect with, because we are spread across three different campuses. Zoom made it much easier to connect with staff members on different campuses. We have a campus in Melbourne, we have a campus in Geelong, we also have a campus in regional Victoria.

There's a point that supported connectedness, but then people felt less connected to their individual teams because obviously, being dispersed and not being located in that same office that we were previously. It means we felt disconnected. Again, like the pandemic's presented so many silver linings, there's so many challenges as well.

Erin: Yeah, and I think trying to maintain a company culture, when everyone is at home and you don't have that banter in the kitchen. Or you're not able to really see people and have impromptu conversations, because everything is pretty much scheduled. If it's Zoom, that can be a challenge as well. I think that while there's people that really enjoy working from home, there's people that also enjoy working from home, but miss having those conversations. Those impromptu unscheduled conversations, where it's just really how you can foster really good relationships in the office.

Tips on how to avoid making age-based assumptions and stereotypes about employees and candidates

According to a recent study conducted by the Australian Human Rights Commission, along with the Australian HR Institute, 46% of employers in Australia are still reluctant to hire workers over a certain age. 28% said they defined an older worker as 61 to 65 years old, but 17% classified an older worker as 51 to 54 years old. Now, this is a 6% jump since 2018. Another common prejudice is that older people are not very comfortable with technology. However, a recent survey has found out that people over 55 are actually less likely to find using tech in the workplace stressful compared to their younger colleagues. So, Lisa, how can hiring managers and recruiters avoid making age-based assumptions and stereotypes that unnecessarily right off qualified candidates?

Lisa: The tech one is a classic age-based stereotype, and it goes back to my point before that. What are the inherent requirements of that role? Ensuring decision makers are aware of the benefits of a diverse workforce. What are the benefits of the diverse workforce? What is the business case? And then also understanding biases and assumptions around age, gender and sexuality, culture, differing ability, the range of diversity that we talk about. Now, we also know that ageism affects women more than men as they get older, and this blends into a gender equality issue. We also know that women of color or who have a disability are even more disproportionately disadvantaged. This is where taking an intersectional approach is just so important.

If we think about tech and we look at what are the inherent requirements of the role, and then recruit based on the inherent requirements of the role. If you're recruiting, make sure you're asking the right questions at interview to ensure that you are gaining the capability you need. But make sure these questions are reviewed by a diverse group beforehand, so that you can make sure that they aren't biased towards a particular group. Having a diverse group interview questions, review job ads for that biased language is really helpful. And if the requirements of the role change, for example, if new technology is introduced, which often happens, then it's the organisation's responsibility to train their people regardless of their age.

Erin: I think that's great. I think that's a really good point, as well as in training people, I think is a really key component of ensuring that the diversity and inclusion practice that a company has in place moves forward. It doesn't really work. If it's only coming from the top down. It doesn't really work if it's only coming from the bottom up. It needs to be a united front moving forward. I guess from your perspective at Deakin, what have you found are some of the best tactics to make sure that everyone, or as many people as possible, are on board with the D&I goals that you have?

Lisa: Leadership commitment. Without that over leadership commitment, it's really hard to get initiatives and engagement with diversity and inclusion off the ground. Leadership commitment is essential. And through that, I mean, making sure that people hear their leaders actively supporting diversity and inclusion initiatives. Following that, as I mentioned before, a strategy is really important because it also articulates what the organisation is committed to, and how they're going to achieve those objectives. Those policies also must mandate inclusion. So, your code of conduct equal opportunity, a diversity and inclusion policy perhaps, and also your systems processes and procedures must support not disadvantaging anyone. Also, people must know what it takes to be an inclusive workplace. You can have all of that in place, but if there's a bad culture when it comes to inclusion, it won't be successful.

Erin: Yeah, I think that's another really key component, is making sure that that culture is moving in the right direction as well. And that can be a challenge. To go back to the point, you made about having the leadership on board, our survey found out that 84% of people that were surveyed think it's important to work for an organisation that promotes diversity, inclusion, and belonging for everyone. That's an overwhelming amount of people that really want to be a part of an organisation that is visibly and actively trying to make sure that they are moving their diversity, inclusion and belonging, policies or culture in a direction that's going to be more inclusive for everyone. I think that's really important.

Is there any advice that you have, for someone that's beginning to look into the ageism piece in their workplace for where they can start? Maybe just the very first step into how they can take a look at what some of the policies and procedures in place are that they might need to look into to change to ensure that they are not facilitating unconscious bias in the ageism space?

Lisa: I think there's many things that you can do, and I think research is really important. When I say research is, the Human Rights Commission have great resources on ageism discrimination, generally. Starting really understanding what ageism is about. The unique factor about ageism, is that with a bit of luck, it's going to impact everybody. It's not like culture, which is unique to a group of people, or it's not like gender and sexuality. We all age. With a bit of luck, we will see ourselves into retirement. That is where it's unique.

I think from a "what's in it?" for me perspective, it's really important to tackle this. I mean, obviously diversity and inclusion is so important generally for people's mental health and wellbeing, as well as being able to thrive at work. Arm yourself with the facts. Go to the Australian Human Rights Commission website, learn about ageism, learn about how it presents in the workplace because sometimes it's not very obvious. Sometimes it's so implicit that someone coming in from a particular age group knows that they don't feel as though they belong, but they're not quite sure why. It might be because of some of the language, perhaps that's being used. Or the assumption that someone coming in over the age of 45 won't be able to use a particular technology platform.

Also, it's true that you implement actions that will really combat those issues that you see in your particular workplace. So, make it workplace specific. And to uncover some of those issues, get the data, do a staff survey, cut the results by age group, cut the results of that survey by gender, and compare them. if you are asking a question around belonging, for example, do you feel as though you belong at this workplace? Do you feel as though you can contribute fully and thrive? If you're getting different answers from your 18 to 25 age bracket, compared to your 50 to 55 age bracket, there's something in that that you can talk about.

What will it ultimately take to ensure a better and more inclusive workplace in the future

Erin: Absolutely. I think that if you can get the data from your company, internally, that's the best place to probably start. The final question, which is how we finish every episode of Hire Potential with Indeed is, what will it ultimately take to ensure a better and more inclusive workplace in the future?

Lisa: This is an interesting question. I think there's probably multiple factors. I think attitude is really important. Being really aware that your experience is not the experience of others. Other people may have similar perspectives, but your experience is very unique to you. I don't get to decide if I'm inclusive. The people around me get to decide if I'm inclusive. Empathy is really important. Getting outside of your own experience and getting outside of your own perspective and being open to others perspective. That's from an individual. I think every individual has the opportunity to make a difference in that regard.

But also, from an organisational perspective is, it's very obvious when diversity and inclusion is lip service. And it's very obviously when diversity and inclusion efforts are tokenistic. Having strategies, policies, etc., in place, but also measuring it through your staff surveys, measuring it through your metrics. What is our age diversity? And if we've got a goal or an objective that has age diversity, measure that and report on it, because what gets measured, gets done. It's the cliché, and track it over time and evaluate it and review it. I think they're the some of the key things that organisations can put into place, to get action happening.

Erin: Well, thank you so much for that insight. We're really grateful that you were here with us today, Lisa. 

Lisa: Thanks, Erin. It’s been a pleasure.

Conclusion 

Erin: Thank you for listening to Hire Potential with Indeed. Before you go and start building a better workplace, don't forget to hit subscribe, and leave a review if you found this podcast helpful. If you'd like to read our full D&I report, click the link in this episode's description to fill out the form. 

Just a quick note, the views and opinions expressed in this episode by the guests do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Indeed. Additionally, the information in this episode does not and is not intended to constitute legal advice. Instead, all content we discuss is for general informational purposes only and you should consult with a legal professional for any legal issues you may be experiencing.

The data in this podcast references Indeed’s 2021 D&I report. 

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Sources: Indeed is the world's #1 job site according to Comscore, Total Visits, March 2021.

Sources: Over 250 million unique visitors every month, Google Analytics, Unique Visitors, February 2020.

Sources: The research in the report referenced in this episode was commissioned by ThatComms Co on behalf of Indeed and conducted by YouGov. The study was conducted online between 11 - 17 February 2021, involving 2,060 working age Australians (aged between 18-64) currently in either full or part-time employment, or actively looking for work