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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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