The latest piece of equal opportunities legislation is about employing people of all ages, and not discriminating against someone because they are ‘too young’ or ‘too old’. The Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 means that from 1 October 2006 diversity is no longer simply good business practice but also a statutory obligation. The good practice points below might be useful for those who recruit.

THE REGULATIONS WILL:

• Ban age discrimination in terms of recruitment, promotion and training

• Ban unjustified retirement ages of below 65

• Remove the current age limit for unfair dismissal and redundancy rights

RECRUITMENT

• Base decisions on skills, relevant experience and capabilities and retain interview notes 

• Remove age limits from job adverts 

• Avoid ambiguous wording that implies age or describing an age-related company culture

• Avoid specifying educational criteria that indirectly discriminates, eg recent Degree, GCSEs only 

SELECTION

• Remove date of birth from application form and put it on a separate monitoring form that interviewers don’t see 

• Focus on quality and relevance of experience, not number of years and on skills, not stereotypes

• Do not make assumptions regarding physical fitness based on age 

PROMOTION 

• Make promotion opportunities clearly open to all employees

• Base promotion decisions on measurable performance and results 

TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT 

• Offer training to all equally 

• Do not assume that older employees are no longer interested in their development 

REDUNDANCY 

• Be unbiased and use skills/performance and business requirements as criteria

RETIREMENT 

• Mandatory retirement age under 65 unlikely to be legal – needs very clear justification 

 

See Also:

 

 

DIVERSITY THROUGH WORK PLACEMENTS

---