Most Popular Articles Show Employers More Focused On Workplace Culture

I’m coming up on a fourth anniversary as a Forbes contributor to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). While my key focus is on workplace age and aging, I incorporate challenging topics into the framework of organizational DEI, relying on over a decade of corporate experience, combined with the latest academic research and best practices.

What excites me most is the shift I see as organizations wake up to ageism. Recognizing a long-overlooked workplace issue makes HR and DEI leaders hungry for ways to understand better how ageism shows up in the workplace and what they need to do to address it.

Reviewing my 2022 contributions on the topic, the three most read articles tell me employers are serious about improving workplace culture. They are consistently reading to learn the nuances that make ageism complex and demonstrate how it easily bleeds into other dimensions of diversity, such as ableism. Here’s the countdown.

Third Place

Workplace Age Bias Hurts Early And Late Career Workers. The best way to create workplace change is by engaging all ages in the effort. This article resonates with younger employees because they are increasingly unwilling to do the same work as their older colleagues for less pay and benefits. Nor should they. On the other end of the age spectrum, older workers are becoming more vocal about discriminatory actions, especially in the hiring process, where they are often overlooked.

Key message: The dangers of pitting generations against each other are made quite clear while emphasizing how antiquated workplace practices are for succession planning and the expectation of retirement by a certain age.

Second Place

Does Your Company’s Diversity, Equity And Inclusion Strategy Include This Critical Element? This article emphasizes the importance of age equity as part of a diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) strategy and points to the need for education and training to understand the myriad of ways that age bias shows up in the workplace–across the age spectrum.

Key message: The article explains the difference between ageism and ableism and why it’s critical to recognize how they differ and why they frequently overlap. It also highlights that the only way to combat ageism is by creating awareness and managing it through critical self-evaluation and a commitment to change.

First Place

This year’s most-read article is Workplace Culture: 5 Key Elements For A Positive Employee Environment. This article resonates with readers because workplace culture is powerful. Moreover, it can be a significant factor in business success or create a dysfunctional environment that drains talent.

The pressure continues for HR and DEI leaders who are working feverishly to ride the wave of constant workplace change. Culture impacts every employee, so leaders recognize this as a strategy to engage and retain them. Not only that, but the subject framing is positive, which tells me that readers appreciate an optimistic perspective.

Key message: This article suggests five critical factors contributing to workplace culture: Belonging, Contribution, Flexibility, Equity and Growth Mindset. It explains why these five factors matter to today’s employees and what leaders can do to emphasize them. Each of the five factors represents a strategic opportunity to better engage employees. Whether employers tackle just one or all five, employees are likely to respond favorably.

Looking Ahead

The coming year will continue to challenge organizations as they scramble to understand the new employer-employee relationship. Expectations must be negotiated on both sides of the employment relationship. Wise employers will continue to focus on flexibility and equity. Wise employers will continue to demand the same.