One in five people have been discouraged from applying for a job because it contained an age restriction, according to a new report from the CIPD, The Challenge of the Age, to be published later this month.
Although age prejudice is much worse for people over 40, one in 12 under-35s have been told they were too young to be considered. Twice this number believe they have been rejected for being too young, but have no evidence.
The Government is expected to publish draft regulations on age discrimination in Spring 2004 and by December 2006, UK employers will be acting illegally if they let age prejudice influence their recruitment decisions.
“Waiting for legislation – which in itself could trigger knee-jerk, damage-limitation responses – will be too late, and may leave companies exposed to legal risks,” says the report.
The Employers’ Forum on Age recommends that employers start taking steps now to prepare for the age legislation by asking the following 10 questions.
1. Can you justify the use of specified periods of experience (e.g. 2 years experience required) in your job adverts?
2. Have you removed age as a selection criteria for redundancy?
3. Do you have evidence that all age groups can access flexible working opportunities?
4. Can you provide evidence that salaries and benefits are not age related?
5. Are you able to monitor by age the drop-out rate from different stages of your selection process?
6. Are you able to collate and analyse information from exit interviews by age?
7. Is the same contractual retirement age applied to everyone in the organisation?
8. Are you aware of different sickness absence rates amongst different age groups?
9. Do you assess the intake of your graduate, fast track or management development programmes for potential age bias?
10. Can you monitor poor performance and age-profile those individuals?
Dianah Worman, CIPD Diversity adviser said: “Age discrimination is costly to business given that older workers achieve the same levels of performance as younger workers. In fact, the business case for employing older workers seems more compelling as they are more likely to stay in their jobs for longer – the cost of replacing staff is more than £3500 on average.”
Worman added: “With a shrinking younger population and a growing older one, employers will have no alternative but to change. Employers will require an understanding of how to manage, recruit, reward, train and motivate employees across all age ranges, and at all stages of their careers. In addition, the whole concept of retirement will have to be reassessed.”
The Pensions Green Paper, put forward by the Government and expected to come into force soon after the law on age discrimination, contains a raft of tax and pension changes to encourage people to work for longer.
Barclays, the high street bank, is one example of an organisation displaying good practice when employing older workers. The bank had a history of losing staff over 50 to early retirement whenever it made cuts in its workforce, but began to realise that it was also losing company knowledge and experience. The bank now has an “inclusion” charter to cut out age bias in all its policies, recognising that its future average customer as well as its staff are likely to be older.
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