Ageism, career catfishing, and a 10-year low for US employee engagement

In this episode, we start with the concerning prevalence of workplace ageism, where research shows nearly all employees over 40 experience age discrimination and feel pressured to downplay their experience.

We then explore the puzzling "career catfishing" phenomenon, where 34% of Gen Z workers reportedly accept positions only to deliberately skip their first day without notice - raising questions about evolving power dynamics between employers and employees.

Finally, we analyze Gallup's recent findings showing U.S. employee engagement has hit a 10-year low, with just 31% of workers feeling engaged and particular disengagement among younger workers and those in finance and technology sectors. 

Connect with DeMario:

On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/demario-bell-7a510994/

Connect with Stacey:

On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/staceynordwall/

Articles:

The silent career killer? Nearly every employee over 40 sees rampant ageism in the workplace

Gen Z is ‘career catfishing’ in power move to irk corporate employers

US employee engagement falls to 10-year low

Chapters

• 1:17 The silent career killer? Nearly every employee over 40 sees rampant ageism in the workplace
• 12:31 Gen Z is ‘career catfishing’ in power move to irk corporate employers
• 20:28 US employee engagement falls to 10-year low

Transcript

Stacey Nordwall (00:00):

Welcome to Toot or Boot, a weekly discussion about HR and work-related news. Each week we toot the news we like and boot the news. We don't. I'm your host, Stacey Nordwall. I have about 20 years of HR experience, mostly in early stage tech companies. And joining us today we have DeMar Bell. Welcome DeMario.

DeMario Bell (00:21):

Thank you Stacey. So honored to be here today.

Stacey Nordwall (00:23):

I am so happy to have you. I know we have tons of friends in common, but this is our first meeting. For those who don't know too much about you, please tell us a bit about yourself.

DeMario Bell (00:33):

Yeah, so happy to be here, Stacey. So a little bit about me is I consider myself a community architect, a community builder. I come to this space after intersecting two of my favorite loves, which are community and HR. I was most recently at Culture Amp where I led our global community of over a hundred thousand HR professionals and people leaders. Recently left Culture Amp, and now Stacey, I'm building my own community. So I founded my company called Gatherful. I'm focused on all types of communities, but staying close to my love, which is HR and community. So that's what I'm up to nowadays.

Stacey Nordwall (01:06):

I love it and I think this is exciting because there are some questions where I feel like I want the community insight because I think that there are a lot of ways that within HR that we could be building communities internally at companies to create better work environments. And this first article in particular, I really want to get your insight on this. The first article we're going to talk about is from work life. It's called the Silent Career Killer. Nearly every employee over 40 sees rampant ageism in the workplace. The recap is a survey of 1000 workers by my perfect resume found that almost all workers over the age of 40 believe that ageism exists in the workplace. Additionally, they said 90% of those surveyed admitted feeling pressured to conceal their age or downplay their experience in order to conform within the workplace. And they found that 95% of surveyed workers reported that age-related stereotypes affected their sense of belonging at work. And 86% believed older employees were targets of workplace bullying. So for me, this sounds like the prime opportunity for the skills of community building. What did you think of the article and what kind of wisdom can you share with HR folks about how to cross some of these divides?

DeMario Bell (02:29):

Yeah, so I think I was talking to Tara and we were talking about how Stacey, I believe that we have six generations in the workplace right now, which I believe is the most that we've ever seen in our time. And this conversation has often come up around ageism and professionals of a certain age, feeling honest. They're either being pushed out of organizations, not getting the mentorship or the opportunities and or not being hired as well.

DeMario Bell (03:03):

We also hear that conversation on the other end with Gen Zers as well. And so the topic of ageism is so interesting because I think that, and even those who are in the middle, I feel like I'm in the middle of that. I feel the same way. But one of the things I do want to say, Stacey, is that it's real. And what I think that organizations right now are playing catch up on how do you support and foster a workplace where you have this many generations in it. So I really do think that a number of organizations are building it as they're flying it when you think about how do I support employees of a particular age and still make them feel included in a part of the workplace culture.

Stacey Nordwall (03:47):

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think to your point, we're seeing that really distinctly on both ends, like ageism when it comes to Gen Z and how they are coming into the workforce and how people are feeling about how they're coming into the workforce. And as you're saying, the people on the other end of the spectrum who are trying to, are feeling really challenged by even trying to get hired or feeling like they're getting pushed out. And I think it was interesting too, one of the things the article said was that you see how this ageism comes out of societal norms where the advice that people get is even like, okay, well omit from your resume, from your LinkedIn, the years that you graduated and take out the older experience so that people don't see, essentially, they don't see how old you are. And it's interesting because how are people meant to take that when they're basically saying it's bad. It's bad for people to see how old you are, it's bad for people to see when you graduated.

DeMario Bell (04:59):

One of the things I was talking to Tara about is even on LinkedIn where I've noticed folks of a particular age, well, maybe not, but taking their graduation years off of their education part. And for me, I would say that when we talk about inclusion, we often leave out ageism in that conversation and how ageism is a real and big part of it. I would also say one of the things that I thought that was interesting in the article was how it talked about how professionals of a particular age having to modify their authentic selves just to survive within the workplace culture. And I would say having worked in tech and having worked in startup companies, I've seen that to be true. And even as a person of color myself, I've certainly had to do that. So that certainly resonates with me as well. And then the other thing I would say on this SOL is what I would say to, and I'm losing my thought here, but what I would say say to HR professionals, especially internal teams who are looking to bridge this gap here, is really to have more conversations with their professionals of these different generations to better understand how they can support.

(06:36):

Additionally, I would say is to offer, I love mentorship, I would say as well as offer opportunities, Stacey, for intergenerational mentoring because I really do think there's opportunities where we could be learning from each other. Something that I would call when I worked in mentorship, like reverse mentoring. So how can compare different professionals of different career stages with each other so that there is this two way, this bi-directional learning with one another.

Stacey Nordwall (07:10):

Yeah, yeah. And I think you mentioned this and it was one of the things that stood out to me. I think that ageism is often not a part of the conversation when people talk about DEI and a lot of the things that, the advice that they were giving about how to address this was essentially do DEI work, right? It was about conducting regular bias audits for hiring and pay and promotion practices and what you're talking about, the mentorship programs and creating flexible work and ERGs, that's DEI work. So it's interesting to me to see these articles essentially try to say that without saying it anymore. They don't want to talk about DEI, given the environment that we're in, but ultimately this. That's DEI work. That's what that work is.

DeMario Bell (08:11):

And it's so important to business growth. That's the thing, Stacey, we can't not talk about. DE and I ageism all other groups that are on that continuum and not talk about success of business. And let me be honest with you, I'm not one of those people who are like, oh, so what's the business value? What's the business value? But Stacey, and this is not an original thought, I took this from Shonda Rhimes from, well, I know her from Grey's Anatomy, but from Shondaland, but Shonda Rhime said this, which is so true. She said, Stacey, when we look in our communities in we live in which we play, in which we connect, they are diverse. Somehow we get into the workplace and look at that as abnormal. I think we've made this as too, we forgive me too scientific, and that's not the right word to use, but we've made this same, we've overly contextualize this where intellectualized this, where none of us live in spaces where everyone looks, think behaves, acts move just like me or you.

(09:35):

And so we cannot talk about how do we have a thriving workplace, a better product, top talent without talking about, to your point, diversity, equity, and inclusion. How do we have the best talent no matter who they are, where they come from, how do we make sure they have what they need to be successful in their roles? That's the equity piece there. The inclusion piece is how do we keep them coming back every day and that they want to come back every single day. So that's the retention piece there. And so when I read this article, I'm not sure if we're there yet. To me, I'm going to be honest with you, it was a Toot for me because it is a really important topic that I truly believe that organizations want to get right and need advice on. How do we get there?

(10:30):

I was nervous reading this article because I was just like, I hope this doesn't fall down the same trap of a one-sided article. But it wasn't, to me, I felt that it was it, especially with the data, to me, it humanized how professionals of particular career stages feel in terms of what's next for them. I was just having lunch with the, I'm rambling, please forgive me, Stacey, and she's been in her role for almost 30 years. She's an executive at a top company here in the US and she has to be at least in her mid fifties. And she said, DeMario, I don't know what's next for me. She's had about five more years into the company's going to be coming to me about considering retirement. And I could sense just in that conversation, Stacey, the anxiety that came, and as someone who retirement is not even in my conversation now, I got so many years to work. But I could sense that for an organization that you've given so much of your life, and even if you haven't had the longest tenure, but to be of a particular age and know that you are at an age where a company is looking at you, it's time to start thinking about buying you out or what's next.

Stacey Nordwall (12:02):

Yeah. Which is I am going to not let myself go down the route of buyouts because I know we will talk about that in our next episode and what all that means. But I do want to talk about, since we're talking generations,

(12:20):

I want to talk about Gen Z in this next article, which was from New York Post. The title is Gen Z is quote, career catfishing in power, move to irk, corporate employers, new trend alert. We have career catfishing, and apparently this is the phenomenon of Gen Z, accepting a job and then not showing up on the first day. This was a survey by CV Genius in the uk, found that 34% of survey Gen Z employees skip day one of work without communicating with their new employer as a demonstration of autonomy and of power. And 24% of millennials, they said, were doing this as well. This was the most confused boot for me. Is this a real thing that is happening? Is this happening?

DeMario Bell (13:14):

So we're aligned, Stacey, okay, first I never read anything from the New York Post, but then when I read this, I was like, what am I reading here? It is a boot. Lemme tell you, it's a true boot. But I've never heard this Stacey truly read this article. I never heard this before.

Stacey Nordwall (13:36):

Yeah, no, I mean think the reason why I was like, okay, me try to figure out what this is, is because I know that it is a real thing that people will accept offers and then continue their job search and they might find something better and then they might decide not to accept that original job. That's something that happens particularly in situations where there's a big time lag between the offer and the start date. But to accept a job, know that you are going to take that job and then just not show up day one and not say anything. And I'm trying to imagine, do they just show up day two, like boom, catfished, what is, I can't just can't even conceptualize what is happening there or what that actually conveys. I don't get it. And as somebody, as an HR person who works hard on onboarding, that would make me mad. I'd be like, excuse me, I had stuff planned. I had a whole schedule. What? I hear you. I don't get it. I really don't get it.

DeMario Bell (14:43):

So I'm curious, Stacey, and your experience as being an HR leader, have you ever experienced this?

Stacey Nordwall (14:53):

I am trying to think. I've definitely had people show up to work their first day, but nobody told me that we had hired someone. I've had that happen, which is not great. I've had people show up late either because of some kind of miscommunication or something like that, but I've never, and they were in communication with us telling us what was going on, but I don't think I've ever had someone just not show up on their first day and then show up later. Nothing happened.

DeMario Bell (15:32):

Yeah. I don't think in any conversations that I've had with friends, I've ever heard them say this to me. I would say that I have Stacey and I'm putting myself out there because I asked you to be vulnerable and thank you for being vulnerable. I have gone back after I've signed an offer and days before I was supposed to start and say that, and I've only done that once. And I also want to set the context. So I don't want to say, so I've only done that once, listeners where I've gone back days before and that was because of some really serious circumstances, but I've never heard of and that's just not true. But to go back to the article, I think this, which is why I was kind of like, I have a reaction to it and it is in my boot. My boot part is I think it continues to antagonize this bias towards young workers.

(16:34):

Like they're contrarian, they're not hard workers. They want this platter laid out. And you know what, Stacey, I think it would've made for a better argument if when I read the article, if there were quotes, testimonials, any type of stories that help compliment the argument that the article is saying, because if it's true with the lowercase t, then let us have a real dialogue around that. I think the other thing that stood out to me in the article is that it lacked nuance as well. So it's very surface level for me and didn't really get into some of the systemic context as well that I think could have been important. I think what would've made a better conversation for this, and I was just talking to Tara about this, is the hiring process is broken. So let's just say those numbers are true, but the hiring process is broken. And I've seen either candidates goals or employers goals. And so we've seen it on both ends of that. So let's have a real conversation about it altogether, like how the hiring process is broken, how do we fix it? And this is what we're seeing in certain demographics based on career stages where they fall out of the pipeline.

Stacey Nordwall (18:09):

Yeah. Yeah, I mean I think you're absolutely right about that. And as you were talking, it just made me think, it seems, from everything that I've heard, it seems like the job search is really challenging. So I find it hard to believe that folks would finally get a job and then be like, you know what I'm going to do? Not in this economy, not yet, not in this economy, I don't think so.

DeMario Bell (18:37):

I'll say this. There was towards the end of the article, there was someone who, they declined an offer around $37,000. And so you can't live off of $37,000 in this economy. Hear that. And I wish there was more about what was the role in et cetera. But I'll say this though, Stacey, my first job that I had paid me less than $30,000 a year. Now I'm not talking about in high school, in college, I'm talking post-college. My first job was pay me less than 30,000. I was living in an expensive college town. I could barely pay rent, barely pay rent. I took that and I just made do with it. There is a shift now based on where my generation, gen Z, and I'm sure it'll be true for Gen Alpha, who comes into the workplace as well, who are demanding and who want higher starting salaries.

(19:38):

Because I look back and I'm going on a tangible, when I look back at making 30,000, so lemme say, but lemme tell you, making that 30,000, Stacey, I built so much character, endurance, perseverance, it taught me better on how to budget my money and all of that. But right now, I couldn't imagine to go back to the article, if I'm underemployed, unemployed, I've invested in a process and I don't have another job lined up, then I would accept an offer and then not show up on the first day. The math just ain't mathing for me.

Stacey Nordwall (20:17):

No, me neither. Me neither. All right. So this is somewhat related and we can both, since we're both former Culture Ampers, we are deep within the employee engagement space. But I have an article from HR Dive that was US employee engagement falls to 10 year low. And the recap here is that a January 14th report from Gallup revealed that employee engagement in the US dropped to its lowest point in 10 years. At the end of 2024, only 31% of employees were engaged and 17% were actively disengaged. They said these are the lowest levels since 2014. And that employee detachment is growing nationwide, particularly among workers under age 35. And those in finance, technology, transportation and professional services. And given that you've been living and breathing that employee engagement for a while now, did these numbers surprise you or is this kind of what you would've expected?

DeMario Bell (21:25):

It's kind of what I would've expected, Stacey, to be quite honest with you, just given some of the companies that I've spoken with just in casual conversations and what I've seen in the research over the years, especially at Culture Amp, what we would publish in our annual reports and what I read just from the industry, it's not surprising that employee engagement is at a low and it is on a decline. And I think we're going to continue to see a delta, particularly in the industries in which they've mentioned tech, transportation, services and professional services. I mean,

Stacey Nordwall (22:00):

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing, right? It's not a surprise to me, especially those industries, because of the number of layoffs that have happened recently, the return to office mandates and a lot of that, it doesn't seem surprising to me. I thought what was really interesting in particular was, well first they said engagement peaked in 2020 at 36%. That seemed kind of dismal to me. 36% does not feel particularly engaged. But what was really interesting was that they said there was a 10% from March, 2020, there was a 10% drop from 56 to 46% of employees feeling clear about what's expected of them at work and an 8% drop of employees feeling strongly that someone cares about them at work. So for me, that was like, I felt like that was not just about engagement, that was spoke to a certain level of disillusionment about being in the workforce. So yeah, I think that really struck me in particular.

DeMario Bell (23:11):

No, I hear you. And to your point in 2020 when engagement peaked at 36%, to your point, I would still read that as you've still got a lot of work to do.

Stacey Nordwall (23:26):

Yeah,

DeMario Bell (23:29):

We need to flip that. But to your point, and I'm just going back and looking at it, I could see why, lemme just talk about from my experience working in tech and why this just resonates with me. When I look, when I articles like this and I look at the research that employee engagement continues to decline. I believe Stacey, and this is my truth with a lowercase t and people will argue me this down, I do believe that a number of organizations are asking more of employees, and there's not an equal exchange in value. And I don't know that there should be, I just don't know, Stacey, that I should be coming to work every day feeling like I'm constantly getting the shorter end of a stick. And so I do think what this is about on the whole, I think what this is about, I think this is about equity and inclusion.

(24:31):

I think employees, A, they want to feel valued and they want that value to show up in ways in which they like to be incentivized and rewarded. Now, that's hard to do at scale. I know that you cannot not reward and incentivize people based on how they want to be, but my point in that is that companies are asking folks to come back into the office full time stripping away certain benefits. So paying more in health benefits and premiums, salaries are not competitive anymore. So when you look at the value prop, employees are like, well, why should I continue giving 110% and the organization isn't giving back 110%,

(25:18):

But we also have to have a conversation around Stacey, what type of cultures are we fostering in our workplaces When we talk about employee experience, what does that look like? Are we defining that? And then once we've defined that, how are we communicating that back out into our employees as well? I think that we could very well be operating off of different definitions of what we think a good workplace is, and which is why when I see these studies around best workplace, I always take those with a grain of salt. And this is no dig, I'm not digging, but I always take those with a grain of salt because I'm just like, anybody can mark a nine or a 10 on a Likert scale, but what does that actually mean? What compelled you to give that? So anyway, all that to say, I really appreciate this article because I think what it also points out, and we were just talking about this broader systemic issues that are impacting employee engagement and I think what employees want. At the end of the day, Stacey, and I don't know how we get here. I'm in a season where I have more questions than the answers.

(26:34):

I am trying to figure it out as well. But I do think that employees, they want parity. And one of the things I appreciate about the article is that it provided the data about how the employees felt. So it put a microscope to their hearts and we were able to hear from them through the numbers, how they are experiencing their workplaces as well. And it also shows to go to disengagement, and I'm going to come off of this, it also showed that the disengagement was not just based on an individual level. It also showed again that it was systemic as well. So all that to say it resonates with me. I've been in tech, I mean, my days have been super long. I felt that for the compensation that I was getting for the, and not just the hours, I think that the salaries we make, Stacey would never be fully indicative of the value that we drive. But I certainly felt that I wanted a little bit more, but I also agreed to speak up and say that at the same time, because black male in tech don't have tech experience, I'm in hr, don't have a traditional HR background. So all these things now my imposter syndrome is kicking in and I'm just be grateful what you have DeMario, just be grateful for what you,

(27:56):

And that's a whole different conversation when you think about intersectionality and what one chooses to disclose in a survey, what they chooses to advocate for themselves in the workplace. So yeah, it was a two different,

Stacey Nordwall (28:12):

Well, I think, and you kind of mentioned this as well, one of the things that it felt so in general too, did this article, yeah, because of we need to have this conversation. One of the things that I think you mentioned, and they said kind of at the end of the article, which felt a little bit like a throwaway to me. They said Gen Z workers and women appeared to be most likely to leave. So understanding their unique needs and preferences can help the firm, help the firm reported, especially when it comes to culture, flexibility and career development. So for me, I was like, okay, that's a little random demographic side nugget at the end of, okay, well why would it be these two groups that would be most likely to leave the workforce? Is that because of the work environment? Is that because they need flexibility?

(28:59):

Let's start having that, get some of these conversations a little bit more and start talking about them a bit more. Which again, to kind of go back to the continued attack on DEI, those are the kinds of conversations that we would be having if people weren't afraid to do that work. And so yeah, that worries me a little bit too in terms of one, why are those groups more likely to leave? And two, are we going to see this disengagement or actively disengaged group grow because of everything that's happening within our world right now and all of these conversations that maybe we're not having anymore because people are afraid to be having them.

DeMario Bell (29:48):

I wonder too, Stacey and I saw that it did read a footnote to the rest of the article. I think it would've been better to dig into that. I'm wondering, to your point, is it the environment? The other I'm thinking, is it, and this is a real question, I just want to pose it to you, I don't know. Do you think, is it because those demographics feel they have more options? So if women in Gen Z or I'm also thinking about the article we just were just talking about prior to this and how the pose against one another, at least this one tells it combats this bat worker narrative where the other one, I felt like it was antagonizing Gen Z, where this one here, I think it began to talk about that in a way. But to your point, I'm wondering do you think even with the market being what it is or I don't know, I'm curious how you might render that.

Stacey Nordwall (30:41):

I mean for me, I think, well when it comes to women as a very large swath of people to try to think about as a demographic, I mean, I'd have to wonder again if that's also about the kinds of roles that women have and if those are roles where if people have a decision between having to pay for childcare and hours at a job and maybe it doesn't quite work out that they're deciding to leave the workforce instead, or really the caregiver thing would be a massive thing, I would think in terms of deciding whether a work environment is actually going to fundamentally work for Gen Z, I don't know. Again, that feels like a huge difference. That's just everybody. If that is because the market is getting tighter and it's just harder to get entry level jobs because everyone's trying to find something. And if it means someone with more experience takes a more entry level job than the entry level jobs aren't available, there's so many things. That's why that's the stuff that's almost more interesting to me is let's dig into what's happening there. Because if we can't start addressing some of those things or thinking about them, the job market, the employee experience is going to get a lot more strained and challenging.

DeMario Bell (32:21):

I agree. I agree. Thank you for that. We have one more second. One thing I wanted to add to that, Stacey, that we didn't get to yet is I liked how the article did talk about how it also added a manager perspective to this. And I've been saying for the past couple of years, and you know this to be true as well as an HR leader, how the role of the manager has changed, evolved, whichever one you want to use. I think both changed and evolved. And we talk a lot about manager upskilling, which the article did offer some solutions on how can we start to think about employee engagement. And I'm going to say yes and push back on that just a little bit. I'm going to say yes, manager upskilling is a part of that. I also to have some real talk, Stacey, there are some managers who don't want to be managers or who don't want that added responsibility that comes with being a manager.

(33:26):

I also don't want to kick that can down to managers where senior executives feel they don't have a role in employee engagement at the same time, which goes to this conversation I saw on LinkedIn a couple of weeks ago, who owns organizational culture, who owns the culture at a company? And I look at culture and employee engagement as sitting right on top of each other. And so I like that it put a voice to the manager and the role of the manager have expanded or the left that manager are now responsible for. What can we do to support managers and what is the role of other leaders in that as well? So I just wanted to say that I thought that perspective was very interesting. I am now concerned about managers and the support that they needed with now the added responsibilities that they've taken on. It almost seems like from my time most recently where the senior leaders are focusing more on strategy business growth and managers are, you're responsible for employee engagement, you're responsible for culture and HR teams feel that as well. But I see this I potato in terms of,

Stacey Nordwall (34:49):

Yeah, absolutely. Alright, well thank you so much for joining today. I want to make sure that you have time to talk more about the business that you're building and let people connect with you. How so how can people connect with you?

DeMario Bell (35:07):

People can connect with me on LinkedIn, find me DeMario Bell, as I mentioned and we talked about earlier, I recently founded my own community consultancy. So Stacey, I'm working with organizations to build and foster an internal community. So this very topic, when we talk about employee engagement and employee experience being at a 10 year low, I come in to help organizations think through, yes, what is the data saying, but also what are those activations that we should be thinking about to make sure that we're moving that delta in a direction and making some incremental changes. And so thinking through what programs offering initiatives should we be doing to increase that? And on the external side, which I truly love is working with organizations to build customer communities. So how do we bring both, honestly, your employees and your customers closer to your brand? We're essentially become like your brand advocate. So how do we create a space where they feel seen, heard and valued? So if you care about any of those topics and are looking for a thought partner, please reach out to me, DeMario Bell on LinkedIn, would love to connect and to hear how you're thinking about both.

Stacey Nordwall (36:15):

All right, I love that. And thank you so much for joining.

DeMario Bell (36:19):

Thank you Stacey. So glad to be here.