[lg policy] Bad language in the workplace makes older workers uncomfortable

[Harold Schiffman]

 Bad language in the workplace makes older workers uncomfortable

   -
   <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/01/10/bad-language-workplace-makes-older-workers-uncomfortable/#>
   -
   <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/01/10/bad-language-workplace-makes-older-workers-uncomfortable/#>
   -
   <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/01/10/bad-language-workplace-makes-older-workers-uncomfortable/#>

"Younger workers are using language now that many of us would not deem
appropriate in the workplace," she said. Credit: Joe Giddens /PA

   - Olivia Rudgard
<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/authors/olivia-rudgard/>, Social
   Affairs Correspondent

10 January 2018 • 6:22pm

Older employees are being made to feel uncomfortable by bad language in the
workplace, experts have told MPs.

Julie Dennis, head of diversity and inclusion at arbitration service Acas,
told the women and equalities select committee that the organisation had
heard from employees who were uncomfortable at the behaviour of their
younger colleagues.

She said: "We have had calls where older workers are talking about language
used in the workplace and that younger workers are using language now that
many of us would not deem appropriate in the workplace.

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"Because of youth culture they're coming out with certain statements or
words that many of us in the workplace are quite taken aback with - so
there's that culture of banter and not understanding language as well."

Commenting on the issue Hugh Robertson, a senior policy officer at the
Trades Union Congress, said: "Language evolves. That change is a part of
life.

 "However what does not change is that any offensive terminology has no
place at work.

"This is not about generational understanding, it is about respect for your
colleagues, whether young or old.”

Employers might also be discriminating against older workers in the wording
they use in adverts, the committee heard.

Phrases such as "sparky office manager" could be deemed both ageist and
sexist, said Elizabeth Prochaska, legal director at the Equality and Human
Rights Commission.

At the same meeting Christopher Brooks of charity Age UK told MPs that
older people avoid applying to jobs because they are worried about taking
employment away from the young
<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/jobs/11462712/Older-workers-do-not-steal-jobs-from-young.html>
.

"We hear from people who often think they don't want to apply for a job
because they'll crowd a younger person out of it," he said.

"People believe the stereotypes themselves - so you could be looking at a
list of jobs that might well be suitable for you but actually you'll be
thinking 'I'm an older worker so I don't have the skills to do this job'."


-- 
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 Harold F. Schiffman

Professor Emeritus of
 Dravidian Linguistics and Culture
Dept. of South Asia Studies
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305

Phone:  (215) 898-7475
Fax:  (215) 573-2138

Email:  haroldfs at gmail.com
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/

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