‘They didn’t see them as useful’: Trust gaps in an age-diverse workplace

Stereotypes are impacting workplace relations and the nature of work division itself.

Younger workers are less trusting of their older coworkers, according to surveys conducted across Australia and Taiwan.

Associate Professor Chad Chiu from the University of Queensland’s Business School highlighted that younger employees are relying on surface-level characteristics, namely age, to form judgements about their colleagues; and at the same time, older employees and management are less vocal about their capabilities, compounding the issue.

Chiu found consistent evidence that, as a result, younger workers underestimated the capability of their older colleagues.

An Australian study examined the reaction of 177 employees regarding a 55-year-old engineer’s capability to address an urgent production issue, and determined that responses were in accordance with age.

Similar results were found in a survey of 199 employees across 56 professional work teams in Taiwan.

The issue begins at workplace structures that are “becoming more and more horizontal, which means we often see people with significant age gaps working in the same roles”, Chiu said.

“Younger workers often make unfair judgements about this – when they work with older colleagues sharing similar job titles, they often wonder why they don’t advance to more senior positions.

“Intuitively, younger workers can jump to a conclusion that their older peers are incompetent and less trustworthy, making them reluctant to collaborate with them.

“What is worse is that their immediate supervisor thinks the older worker is not performing well because nobody wants to share information or projects with them, or work with them in general.”

While he urged older workers to be more vocal about their skills, Chiu also identified these managerial interpretations as part of the problem.

“Employers and team managers have a responsibility to give older employees opportunities or platforms to show they are capable,” he said.

“It is a mistake to think they don’t need support because they’re older or more experienced.”

In the absence of such promotion, older colleagues risk developing an unjustified repudiation, which, again, would only compound and continue the problem.