Three Fifths Of Workers Suffer

Age discrimination can be a minefield at the best of times, especially for smaller businesses that employ few staff.

According to research by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), around three fifth of workers believe they have experienced age discrimination first hand.

The most recent age discrimination rules prevent the use of age or age-related criteria when it comes to recruitment without justification. They also mean there is no mandatory retirement age before 65 without justification, and there are more up-to-date processes in place to manage retirement for everyone. There can also be no age criteria in redundancy or upper age limit for unfair dismissal and redundancy.

Default retirement is now 65 and set to go up. This means that it is illegal to make someone compulsorily retire before they reach 65. All employees will have the right to request work beyond the age of 65 or any retirement age set by your company. All employers will have to give any such requests consideration.

Don’t Get Caught Out!

Dianah Worman of the CIPD urges that all employers must “survey everything they do for potential discrimination. It can take time to sort out so it’s best to start right now.”

This also means that when you recruit employees, advertising a role appropriately becomes a potential issue. It is important to describe the position without using terms that could be construed as age specific. Phrases like ‘mature person’ should be avoided for this reason or ‘young graduate’, and definitely specific age requirements such as ‘applicant should be between 25-35 years old’. Adverts should also be placed in areas that all age ranges have access to.

Other than recruitment, checking that you have a balance of ages within your business already is a good place to start. If most of your workforce reach retirement at the same time, this could cause you problems, same if you have a large number of women of childbearing age working for you.

Worman says: “It’s good to have a mix of ages in your workforce. It can create a productive blend of the experience of older staff and qualifications and enthusiasm of younger employees. This is the fundamental thinking behind the age discrimination laws, which is worth thinking about.

“It’s going to be a hassle to take these laws into account, but the consequences of not doing so could easily be a trip to an employment tribunal with the associated financial cost and damage to reputation.”

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