How Age Bias Impacts Your Career and How to Fight Back With Textio’s Sandy Matus

It Gets Late Early: Career Tips for Tech Employees in Midlife and Beyond

You may not consider yourself old at 40, but you begin to think about it when you see most of your co-workers in their 20s or 30s being commended for their youthful “energy,” “enthusiasm,” or “hunger.” Many employees strive for success in mid-life and beyond, but they also regularly struggle with varying degrees of ageism - and it’s especially bad at the workplace.

If ageism is an issue in your organization, what can you do? How can you challenge stereotypes about aging and show that people of all ages are capable of making significant contributions to work and society in general? Whatever you might encounter, there is no reason to tolerate discrimination as you age.

Today, I have Sandy Matus with me from Textio, a software company that helps organizations hire and retain diverse talent by removing bias from job descriptions and performance reviews. Sandy is the VP of People and has joined us to share Textio’s data on age in the workplace, talk about how age bias impacts your career, describe what she’s seen across the organizations where she’s worked, and tell you how to fight back. Sandy leads the team responsible for Textio’s world-class employee experience, driving talent strategy, people operations, performance management, Total Rewards, and learning and development programs.

With over 20 years of experience in Human Resources, Sandy is passionate about delivering a truly exceptional and inclusive employee experience. For the last decade, Sandy has focused on supporting tech startups in building the culture and infrastructure needed to scale.

Join us for an engaging and informative conversation. Whether you are an older employee, a younger employee thinking of your future self, a hiring manager, or a business leader, there are so many things you can learn from today's episode with Sandy. Here’s to a better future of work!

"If an organization wants to be a good employer and wants to do well, they're going to be evaluating individuals for the contributions you make, not simply how energetic you look or what appearances you have."

- Sandy Matus

In This Episode:

-Who is Sandy Matus, and what does she do?

-What does Textio’s data say about age bias in the workplace?

-How do we get people to understand how damaging age bias and discrimination are when hiring people?

-How Textio can help companies identify biases in the workplace

-Why are we so far behind on age inclusion within diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) programs?

-What can organizations do to address age bias in the workplace?

-What does the latest research on Language Bias in Performance Feedback say, and where can people find a copy of the report?

-How Textio helps uplift individuals of all ages with the work that they do

-What can you do to thrive in the workplace, regardless of age?

And much more.

Resources:

-Language Bias in Performance Feedback - 2023 Data Analysis and Survey Results: https://textio.com/resources

-Leveraging the Value of an Age-Diverse Workforce: https://www.shrm.org/foundation/ourwork/initiatives/the-aging-workforce/Documents/Age-Diverse%20Workforce%20Executive%20Briefing.pdf

Connect with Sandy Matus:

-Website: https://textio.com/

-LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matussandy/

Connect with Maureen Clough:

-Instagram: @itgetslateearly - https://www.instagram.com/itgetslateearly/

-YouTube: @itgetslateearly - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGrHwk-y7ERaq7bCSjZYf1A?sub_confirmation=1

-Website: itgetslateearly.com - https://www.itgetslateearly.com/

-LinkedIn: maureenwclough - https://www.linkedin.com/in/maureenwclough/

-Facebook: It Gets Late Early - https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100088694515585

This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy