IT staff reductions: A minefield of age bias claims?
Managers in every department must be careful about age discrimination. But the issue is especially potent in IT, where skill sets change constantly and older employees who don’t quickly adapt may feel they’re seen as “obsolete.”
In one recent court case, a company was sued after reducing the size of its IT department.
The company had just finished a major software upgrade. When IT needed to cut staff, the company decided to keep employees familiar with the new system and terminate those who weren’t.
One employee who lost her job sued the company. She was 59 years old at the time.
She claimed older employees were shown the door while the younger ones were retained — and that the focus on the new software was just an excuse to cover up the company’s age bias.
Who won the case?
The court sided with the company and threw the case out.
Why? The employee was terminated for a legitimate reason: Due to the software change, her skills were no longer relevant to the company’s operations.
Employees who did possess the right skills may have been younger than her, but that didn’t mean her age was a factor.
The key to victory in this case: strong documentation about the decision-making criteria.
When deciding who to keep, the company looked at records of all employees’ previous experience and recent performance reviews about how they handled the change in software.
By showing how the RIF was carried out, the company was able to prove age played no role in the woman’s termination.
Cite: Liggins v. American Electric Power Co.
Comments
2 Comments on IT staff reductions: A minefield of age bias claims?
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Phil on
Tue, 25th Nov 2008 4:50 pm
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Sean Smith on
Wed, 17th Jun 2009 3:02 pm
Newer systems typically use newer technologies (often taught at colleges). Older workers are subtly denied training opportunities. (Isn’t training often one of the first things cut in a downturn?)
IMHO, there is a great deal of age discrimination out there (especially in IT and other technical areas). But, companies have been able to successfully cover up that discrimination (so far).
What goes around will eventually come around…
@Phil – When a new system is rolled out, many IT departments have training available for all involved. If a worker doesn’t take initiative to get this training and keep their skillset up to date, then no matter what your age, you will fall behind.
As much as it sucks to say, older people tend to be more resistant to change where the younger crowd will embrace it. This means the younger people will pick up the new skills where the older worker will not. This is the fault of the worker, not the company and is not specifically age biased.
We had one older (non-IT worker) who refused to use the computer for some tasks and would insist upon using the typewriter. These tasks would normally take about 5 to 30 minutes in the computer would take her hours, sometimes days to complete because of her refusal to learn the new skill.
I’m all for keeping older workers because of their experience and knowledge but when they refuse to keep their skills updated and fall behind, I have no sympathy for them.
