Despite working for the multi-million dollar company for more than 20-years and being recognised as a “successful employee”, Baby Boomer Jonathan Langley claims he was dumped from his job with IBM purely because of his age.
The 60-year-old, from Austin, Texas, USA, is suing the global computer manufacturers for age discrimination, alleging he was forced out of his job in June last year because he was not a “hip millennial”.
Langley, who had worked for IBM since 1993, has filed a legal claim against his former employee, which alleges that “had Mr. Langley been younger”, he would not have been fired from his role.
The claim, published by The Register, reads: “Had Mr Langley been younger, and especially if he had been a millennial, IBM would not have fired him. Mr Langley’s age was a motivating factor in his selection for termination.”
Langley worked his way up the ranks over a period of 24 years, reports News.com.au, eventually earning the title of worldwide program director and sales lead for Bluemix software-as-a-service, and was described as a worker whose “performance met or exceeded IBM’s expectations”. He also received a US$20,000 (AU$27,127) bonus just months before his dismissal.
Langley alleges that he was informed in March 2017 that he was being let go as part of a “resource action” after scoring the lowest on his supervisor Kim Overbay’s “secret stack ranking”. He then applied for four other positions within the company but was not hired for any of them.
However, Langley claims he was tipped off in December 2016 by Overbay’s superior, Andrew Brown, who told him in a private email to look for a new job — indicating the decision had already been made.
“IBM’s primary method for taking out its older workers is surprisingly simple,” the claim continues, “A directive comes down to first and second line managers to reduce headcount. Using IBM’s ‘staff reduction methodology’, first and second line managers generate secret ratings of employees eligible for reduction using predominantly subjective evaluation criteria.
“The employees are then ranked against one another and the lowest ranked employees are then selected for reduction. IBM managers sometimes reverse engineer their staff reduction worksheets by first selecting the employees they wish to terminate, and then creating ratings and rankings that purport to justify their selection decisions.”
The majority of the claim outlines IBM’s alleged “millennial bias” which is said to have began after Ginni Rometty was appointed CEO in 2012. The evidence includes a 2015 recruiting tool, titled ‘Myths, exaggerations and uncomfortable truths — The real story behind Millennials in the workplace’ which claims baby boomers are less technologically sophisticated because they were not “digital natives”.
Langley is seeking a reinstatement of employment in addition to lost wages and benefits, damages plus costs. The company has not yet filed a response.