The Question of Ageism: Valuing Experience in the Workplace

My advice to our aging workforce, we need to be visible and we need to be heard because the talents and skills of these women is substantial.

Hello and welcome back to Narratives of Purpose, a place for conversations with inspiring leaders that is all about amplifying social impact. I am your host, Claire Murigande.This episode is the second of three discussions that I moderated for the 2025 International Day against Harassment and for Inclusion in the World of Work, an event that took place on 23 May in Geneva, Switzerland and co-organized by Narratives of Purpose. The title of this conversation is Breaking the Cycle of Workplace Harassment and Discrimination.So welcome to the second session of our webinar series for the third edition of the International Day Against Harassment and for Inclusion in the World of Work. I am delighted to introduce our next speaker, Bonnie Low-Kramen. She is joining me from the U.S. the East coast in Florida.To be more specific, Bonnie is a TEDx speaker, author and former executive assistant of Oscar winner olympia Dukakis.For 25 years she was named top 100hr influencer who has walked in the shoes of the staff and has written about it in two books, Be the Ultimate Assistant and Staff Matters.Bonnie works to end discrimination, close the wage gap and to break the cycle of work based bullying in order to build an ultimate workplace for everyone. Welcome, Bonnie.

Thank you, Claire. I'm delighted to be here. As long as this is a problem, I'm going to continue talking.

All right, so let's start talking about it. So this session, Bonnie, we want to focus on gender and intersectionality. And we know that the great majority of assistants are women, right?So I could say that the profession could be categorized as a female profession. And you have spoken on various stages in many countries. So I want you to start by telling our audience the importance of sharing one story.Because the reason why I ask this is in previous sessions other speakers have mentioned that when you go through bullying and harassment, there's this feeling of isolation, right? That this is only happening to you.

But.

But that's far from being an isolated occurrence. So tell us why it is important to share your story.

It's so valuable, Claire, to know you're not alone in these struggles.So what I've come to know over many years and working for someone as such a powerful role model as Olympia Dukakis, only through awareness can we begin to solve real problems.Allow me to say up front that yes, the profession of assistance is primarily female, 93 to 97%, but the reality is that men are harassed and bullied too. I Know this because they tell me. But the data is clear that women are the primary targets of these toxic behaviors.So I will be focusing on that during this session. And I believe for any man listening that there will be lot of relatability.One of the big surprises for me are the number of women who come up to me after I speak and I talk about harassment and bullying. And what they say is, I didn't know that was what I was experiencing in the workplace. I didn't know there was a name for it.I thought that's just the way it was and that's what keeps me going.So if that applies to anyone listening, the best way I know to help define what we're talking about, what harassment is, what bullying is, because the behaviors are varied. I want to share with you a real life story. And this particular one came to me just this past Monday from an executive assistant in Europe.And I'm going to briefly tell you what she wrote in her email. For years I was a proud and passionate employee. I received excellent feedback from colleagues and senior leadership alike.And then a new manager arrived. He wanted me out. That was clear from day one. HR seemed to guide him on how to handle the situation.When attempts to fabricate poor performance didn't work because there was no basis, he began yelling, intimidating me, and relentlessly resorted to emotional tactics. Humiliation, gaslighting, psychological pressure. Eventually I made a mistake, a policy violation, and he used it as a justification to remove me.I was fired over the Christmas holidays. So I didn't even get to say goodbye to my co workers. I didn't just lose a job, I lost part of myself.I'm actively interviewing, but it's hard to hide it. As for me, the toll this has taken is enormous. My energy isn't the same.I've lost weight, confidence, motivation, all consequences of sustained emotional abuse. That is, I believe, Claire, a pretty vivid example of the behaviors associated with harassment and bullying.And there are just so many stories, but that one, not only is it so current, but it's, it really is reflective of what gets permitted in toxic work environments.

Yeah, thank you for sharing that and thank you for reading part of this, this testimonial that you received.Now, if you look at this in the profession of assistance, right, you said over 90% are women, but within that we also have different age ranges, right? So we talk about gender as being one aspect of the harassment you mentioned previously. Also like sexual harassment.But if we look at ageism, what is your experience then and what can you tell us about it, because today, I mean we know that the workforce, obviously people are working longer and starting retirement later, but we also have different generations working at the same time.

Yeah, it's an interesting, it's an interesting and complicated dilemma, ageism.And what's interesting is that for executive assistance, on one hand our older workers, the baby boomers, Gen Xers, hold a great deal of institutional knowledge and experience and they're practiced with the relationships in an organization. And on the other hand, in 2025 we have a situation where the world is moving towards AI and very high technology.And so you have a group of people who is very experienced, but in many cases what they lack is a college degree. And many companies are using that point do they have a college degree or do they not have a college degree to weed out certain candidates.And in my view that is a short sighted strategy. We've heard about wholesale downsizing and layoffs and it, I believe it is often done without a lot of thought.Now perhaps you heard from this past week a big announcement from the company Starbucks who just rehired 3,000 people because they had fired them to automate to, to replace with machines. And what they have very publicly announced is that the machines aren't cutting it.And I feel sure a good number of those 3,000 people were of a certain age. The reality is that there never has been an age range in the workplace as broad as it is.Right now we've got 20 somethings working alongside 60 and 70 somethings. My advice to our aging workforce is to even. And the challenge of course is partly because we're in a hybrid situation, fully remote.We cannot be invisible. I count myself in this. We cannot. We need to be visible and we need to be heard because the talents and skills of these women is substantial.But Claire, I'm sure you know this, that women in general are socialized when we're young to not toot our own hoardings, to not share our terrific subject matter areas of subject matter expertise. But that is absolutely necessary in this modern workplace in order to not allow leaders to make ill informed decisions. And does it work both ways?Yes. I've heard there are stereotypes about both groups, about all groups actually. I teach my Be the Ultimate Assistant workshop and I have 20 something.The age range is indicative. Is just what I said. I've got 20 somethings in there. 30, 40, 50, 60.And the stereotype is that, oh, all 20 somethings know the latest and greatest in technology. No, they don't. They don't necessarily like it either. The move of leaders.And this is hard work, but it really is about looking at our workforce, at their staff, as individual contributors, each with their subject matter expertise.It is not one size fits all and to very quickly get rid of fire an enormous group of say baby boomers, a company is going to of knowledge in the executive assistant profession.Ageism isn't quite as bad as it may be in other professions because there are many leaders out there who do value experience, the experience that comes with years of doing this. And I see that in my own career that Yes, I had 25 years as an assistant and it is still relevant as I speak with assistants all over the world.The articles bear it out.Soft skills, emotional intelligence, matter culture is king that if companies are looking to hold on to high performers, they need to care about the human beings and that means not abusing them and not demeaning them, humiliating them, embarrassing them. That is not the road to a healthy company.

It's interesting that you mentioned that ageism, or at least the older or the more advanced and more experienced employees within the assistance profession is not that big of an issue because the leaders value the experience. So do you think that this is where companies and employers should go and see how to leverage that experience?

Yes, I do. We're all working longer. Does ageism exist in the profession? Absolutely it does. However, the move for for company leaders is to invest in training.Back in the day, ongoing training was not necessary because the job wasn't as complicated as it is right now.But and this does not only apply to executive assistant work, investment in training is going to be critical for companies to compete at a very high level for the remainder of 2025 and beyond. So that's going to need to be a budget item where it may not have been before.There is no way to stay at the top of your game without ongoing training. And the companies that invest in their people are going to be the ones that are going to be the most competitive.

As a final note and to conclude our discussion, I mentioned earlier your work is all about preventing bullying before it happens. What is your one takeaway that you want to share with our audience?

I want anyone and everyone listening to think about the people you care about. Your children, grandchildren, the young staffers of the future. They are depending on us to build something better.We know that the trauma being caused by these toxic work environments are damaging. We have felt it. 75% of all workers have either witnessed or experienced workplace bullying.The workplace is no place for tears, except for happy tears. You know, it cannot be normalized.These toxic behaviors cannot be accepted and staff needs to stand up, show up, speak up to leaders in a detailed, factual way. Stick with the facts. The facts will speak for themselves. Gather with your colleagues to tell your leaders what's really going on.It must be painted that it is in a company's best interest to commit to a safe environment for the staff who they painstakingly hired in the first place.

Thank you very much. Thank you, Bonnie. It was great to have you for this session.So I just remind our audience so you are a TEDX speaker and you are the author of Be the Ultimate Assistant and Staff Matters. So we'll have all the details for those who want to connect with you through our channels. Thanks a lot.

Thank you.

Claire thank you for tuning in today.If you wish to connect with our guest and follow her work, visit the following website bonnielocramen.com the link is available in the Show Notes step. Stay tuned for the next conversation of our webinar series marking the 2025 International Day against Harassment and for Inclusion in The World of Work.This episode was created in collaboration with Rezalliance, an organization dedicated to raising awareness about harassment and discrimination in all its form.