Leader: How can we stop ageism in IT?

As many readers will have noticed, silicon.com is undertaking a campaign against ageism in IT.

A significant portion of this has been soliciting reader feedback on personal experiences with ageism.

One question we've been asking is whether ageism in IT is a problem in the first place. Many of our readers, as well as our CIO Jury, have weighed in with a resounding "no".

A recent silicon.com poll partially echoes this sentiment, with 8.4 per cent of respondents saying ageism is not a problem in the UK.

But they were in the minority.

The poll asked specifically whether upcoming legislation will make any difference to ageist practices in UK IT.

This would seem the country's best hope. Most of the EU and other countries such as the US have already instituted antidiscrimination laws and anecdotal evidence from readers shows that it helps. Ageism exists outside the UK, yes, but companies have to be more careful because there's always a threat that an employee or potential employee will sue.

However, our polls show readers hold little hope for UK legislation, with the majority - 58.2 per cent - saying it won't make a difference.

That compares to the 19.8 per cent who say it will help and - emphasising the sometimes confusing nature of this topic - 13.7 per cent who say they're not sure how legislation will affect ageism in IT.

The question now, of course, is: If legislation won't help, what will?

Readers have been quite vocal on the topic, so we'd love to hear if you have suggestions - send them to editorial@silicon.com.

Our take is that it'll probably be a combination of factors that will abate ageism. Legislation will have some positive effects but it won't be a panacea. Raising awareness will also help (hence our campaign) and so will making such behaviour socially unacceptable. If employers who discriminate based on age are considered dinosaurs, things may start to change.

Finally, in our campaign we hope to highlight the business rationale against ageism. Simply put, experienced individuals can help firms succeed and compete. Once employers realise this, you'd think the negative stereotypes against those more advanced in years would begin to disappear.