Company: TechVantage Systems (fictitious), a mid-sized IT services company with 2,500 employees, specialising in enterprise software implementation.
Background:
Rajesh Kulkarni, 55, has been with TechVantage for 22 years. He joined when the company had 80 employees and has watched it grow into a formidable player. He’s currently Head of Delivery for the BFSI (Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance) vertical—a role he’s held for seven years.
He’s the kind of employee companies used to build monuments to: loyal, hardworking, institutionally invaluable.
But something has shifted.
The situation
Over the past 18 months, Rajesh’s performance has declined noticeably. He struggles with new project- management tools—Jira, Asana, Slack—preferring email and Excel. In client calls, he’s slower to grasp technical nuances around cloud migration and API integrations. His team has started escalating issues directly to his deputy instead of to him.
His manager, the COO, has raised concerns: “Rajesh is a legacy asset, but he’s not keeping up. Clients are asking for fresh leadership. His resistance to change is holding the vertical back.”
Meanwhile, Aditi Sharma, 32, Rajesh’s deputy, is thriving. She’s tech-savvy, client-facing, and hungry. She’s already doing much of Rajesh’s job informally. Leadership believes she’s ready to step up.
The COO has told HR privately: “We need to ease Rajesh out. Offer him an advisory role, a graceful exit package, something. But we can’t wait another year.”
Rajesh, when approached informally by HR, is defensive: “I’ve given this company two decades. I built this vertical. Now they want to push me out because I’m not 30 anymore? This is age discrimination, plain and simple.”
The dilemma
Is this a legitimate performance issue—where Rajesh is genuinely unable to meet the demands of a fast-evolving role? Or is it age discrimination—where his slower adoption of new tools and different working style are being unfairly penalised because leadership has a younger, shinier alternative?
Should HR recommend transitioning Rajesh out—protecting the business and promoting a high-potential leader? Or protect Rajesh—recognising his contributions and questioning whether the performance concerns are real or just a convenient narrative?
What’s really at stake
This is a test of how organisations handle the inevitable reality that not everyone ages gracefully in fast-changing industries. If TechVantage moves Rajesh out, every senior employee will notice—and wonder if they’re next. If they keep him, they risk holding back a rising star and disappointing clients.
And the line between managing underperformance and age bias is thinner than anyone wants to admit.
What HR leaders said
Ravi Mishra, Head–HR, BITS Pilani
“Influencing and convincing Rajesh to step into an advisory role—whilst maintaining his dignity as a gesture of gratitude for his long association—feels fair to me. Organisations must balance respect for legacy with the realities of business performance.
From my experience, in nearly 90 per cent of cases today, performance tends to decline with age—not because individuals lack intent, but because the pace of technological and process change has accelerated dramatically. Earlier, systems didn’t become redundant within three or four years; now they do.
Many professionals may not recognise their own ‘jury window’—the internal bias that convinces them they’re still delivering what the organisation needs, when in fact the required outcomes have shifted. Organisations don’t run on effort alone; they run on outcomes.
However, I see a leadership gap here. Companies must manage the employee lifecycle more deliberately. Cultural signals—direct or indirect—should prepare employees for changing role expectations well before they reach this stage. If Rajesh had been gradually guided when he crossed his mid-forties, the transition might have felt less abrupt.
There’s also a scientific dimension. After 50, memory, learning speed, and logical processing can slow, whilst the external environment becomes faster and more digital. This doesn’t make anyone redundant—but it does change the processing capability required for certain corporate roles.
If a high-performing junior is held back because a senior is underperforming, the organisation risks losing its future talent. HR must ultimately act in the organisation’s interest.”
Pankaj Lochan, CHRO, Navin Fluorine
“At its core, this is not an age question at all—it’s a performance management question that only appears to be about age.
If TechVantage had clearly defined outcome-based KPIs—client satisfaction, delivery predictability, margins, digital adoption, team capability—and tracked them consistently, this conversation would be factual rather than emotional. Statements like ‘clients want fresh leadership’ belong to the realm of perception, not measurement.
Tool usage is not a KPI. Struggling with Jira or Slack is irrelevant unless it leads to deteriorating outcomes. The real questions should be: Are client escalations rising? Are margins eroding? Has decision-making weakened? If these metrics are objectively declining and traceable to Rajesh’s leadership, then it’s legitimate underperformance—not age bias.
Without data, even valid business decisions can appear discriminatory.
A fair process requires explicit articulation of role demands, documented performance gaps, structured capability-building support, and time-bound reviews with measurable criteria. Only then is the decision ethically defensible.
Experience is not a lifetime guarantee of role continuity—but it is an asset. Past contributions deserve respectful handling. Instead of asking how to ease Rajesh out, HR should first examine the best role fit for him today. Perhaps a re-scoped role or advisory transition could align his strengths with business needs.
My fundamental belief is simple: age bias thrives where performance management is weak. When expectations, measures, and consequences are explicit, dilemmas like this disappear.”
Pradyumna Pandey, Senior HR leader
“I see this largely as unconscious bias, because organisations often assume that once employees cross a certain age, their ability to learn declines.
Instead of offering development opportunities, leaders sometimes default to younger talent for technology-driven roles, assuming they’re naturally more adaptable. That mindset itself is a bias. Fairness demands equal opportunity to learn.
The critical question is whether Rajesh has received structured feedback. If perceptions of underperformance exist without clear communication or a defined measurement framework, the organisation is at fault. Performance should never be linked directly with age.
I’ve seen experienced professionals adapt exceptionally well when given training, mentoring, and time. Adaptability is not the monopoly of youth. At the same time, many younger employees are not as comfortable with new tools as we assume.
Leadership mindset matters enormously. Objective performance management must replace subjective, age-based judgement. Provide the same mentoring, coaching, and training efforts to employees over 45 or 50 as you would to younger staff.
Ultimately, the goal is not to protect tenure blindly—but to ensure that no one is denied development because of assumptions about their age.”
Your turn
What would you do? Share your response in the comment box or share on LinkedIn with #HRKathaCaseInPoint