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Overview of The Employment Equality (Age) Regulations October 2006

The ageing population means that employers will benefit from the fact that older people are interested not only in full time work, but also in part-time & contract work, thus giving greater flexibility.

 

The new law affects employers, training & education providers, trade unions and professional associations. The last two must also be aware that legislation will affect them not only as employers but also from the point of view of membership. The law will cover all aspects of recruitment and selection, training & development, promotion, pay & benefits, statutory redundancy and retirement ages. The law will protect job applicants, working people, people on training, people seeking training, crown appointed people, and members & applicants to trade unions and professional bodies

The new law covers direct and indirect discrimination and harassment, but there will be exceptions if they can be justified, and there is supporting evidence.

 

The EU directive states that differences in treatment may be permitted where they are:

 

"objectively and reasonably justified by a legitimate aim….....and if the means of achieving that aim are appropriate and necessary

 

Legitimate aims may include health & safety, facilitation of employment planning, training requirements, encouraging or rewarding loyalty, and the need for a reasonable period of employment prior to retirement. Access to vocational training for particular categories to promote their vocational integration is also being considered as a justification for different treatment. Only case law will establish what is acceptable!

 

 There will be some key implications for employers

 

wrinklies DIRECT have developed the Age Matters Workshop aimed to help management review its procedures  – a workshop that will address issues relating to company retirement plans, recruitment & selection procedures, promotion procedures, training & development processes, remuneration schemes, and termination policies. It will also help a company to assess the implications arising from the results of an age audit. The aim is to be able to justify your position.

 

More challenges arise from hiring of temps, flexible working, sickness entitlement, insurance and discipline procedures

 

All is not doom and gloom however - a company should look for the upside by considering whether there may be new business opportunities by filling the age gaps. Companies such as B&Q, The Halifax and Domestic & General Insurance have identified ‘bottom line’ benefits from employing older workers. These benefits have come about due to the characteristics that older workers bring with them, characteristics such as a mature approach enabling them to take on greater responsibility, a high degree of loyalty leading to reduced turnover costs, reduced training costs because many experienced workers require little more than induction training, a strong work ethic giving greater productivity, and increased sales by ‘mapping’ front line employees with consumers.

 

Age Matters will be delivered as a facilitated workshop, taking participants through the implications on each of their HR processes. In one-company workshops the company’s own procedures will be the basis for analysis. When running multi-company workshops the material used will be general examples.

 

The objective will be to ensure that the participants understand the implications so that they can modify their procedures. If they want help to do the modifications then this would be a separately negotiated consultancy service.

 

Contact us for more information

 

Email: mikesaunders@wrinklies.org    Telephone: 08452 601116    Fax: 07092 013799

 

 

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Employment and recruitment agency for mature people, providing jobs and work for experienced persons