There’s a long way to go to eliminate age discrimination according to new research, as 16 per cent of HR managers admit to being aware of discriminatory policies and practices within their organisations.
And 28 per cent said they could not confirm that their directors or senior management team were fully committed to eliminating age discrimination at work.
Cranfield School of Management’s Recruitment Confidence Index shows that 89 per cent of organisations claim to have introduced or changed policies and practices to comply with the new age discrimination regulations.
But nearly a quarter of organisations do not have an age discrimination policy and only 54 per cent provide training in the subject to managers.
HR professionals themselves confessed to stereotypical attitudes towards both older and younger workers.
Dr Emma Parry, research fellow at Cranfield School of Management, said: “These results give particular cause for concern as the respondents are HR managers, who should be responsible for championing the elimination of age discrimination within organisations.
“The results also demonstrate that the creation of policies regarding age discrimination is not enough. Training and education programmes are needed in order to address these attitudes and the discrimination that is commonly associated with them.”
