Long-awaited rules prohibiting discrimination on grounds of age take effect from 1 October. Under the new regime it will be unlawful for businesses to treat employees and job applicants less favourably than others on the basis of their age.
The new rules affect every stage of the employment process: recruitment, terms and conditions, training, promotion, transfers and dismissals. In every instance, the basic idea behind the regulations is that it is no longer acceptable to incorporate age-related criteria in your business processes. For example, when recruiting you will need to avoid making any direct reference to age requirements in your job advertisements and interviews. Even indirect references are prohibited, such as asking for applicants with a certain number of years’ experience.
There are a number of specific procedural changes that follow from the new age-discrimination rules. All businesses should note that:
- the upper age limits for employees claiming unfair dismissal or statutory redundancy payments have now been removed
- it is unlawful to compel someone to retire before the national default retirement age of 65, unless there is an objective justification for doing so
- employers are required to consider any employee requests to work beyond the 65 default retirement age (but there is no duty to accept any such request)
- employers are required to give employees 6-12 months’ notice of the date on which they intend them to retire, and must at the same time inform employees of their right to request to work beyond that date.
There are certain circumstances in which it is acceptable under the new rules to discriminate on grounds of age. You must be able to prove that there is an objective justification for your actions, such as protecting your employees’ health and safety by restricting certain high-risk roles to individuals with a specific level of experience.
Bear in mind that you will probably need to reconsider your business admin processes with the new rules in mind. In particular, it is important to record and analyse the age profile of your workforce. This will allow you to plan for forthcoming retirements, as well as to check that you are not giving preferential treatment to any age group in terms of recruitment, training, promotion and so on.
See the age discrimination pages on the Department of Trade and Industry website
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