The TUC and the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) have joined forces to produce a guide which offers useful advice to both employers and employees on the age discrimination regulations.
The guide Managing age: A guide to good employment practice, covers recruitment; selection and promotion; pay; retirement; benefits and pensions; health and safety; redundancy, and harassment. It was funded by the DTI.
Before the guide was written both the TUC and CIPD carried out a series of focus groups across the UK to discover the concerns the new regulations had caused both employers and unions.
CIPD diversity adviser Dianah Worman said: “The CIPD and TUC have joined forces to ensure that HR and trade unions are better informed about what good practice on age is. The guide will hopefully contribute to creating age diverse workforces that implement the new age regulations without falling into the trap of political correctness going overboard while meeting business needs.
“The age regulations will fail if they result in unintended consequences. Employers should not think that graduate recruitment schemes and practices that reward loyalty are automatically unfairly discriminatory – it is making sure they are free from unfair age bias that is important. The guide reflects the business case for employing older workers and should give a boost to their recruitment and retention in the workplace.”
Sarah Veale, the TUC’s head of equality and employment rights said: “The new age laws were a long time coming, but sensible employers have nothing to fear from them. The best way of making sure that their workplace is a bastion of good age practice is to work hand in hand with a union to ensure that employees have a say in how things are to be done.
“Age discrimination is bad for business and ageist remarks can make work unbearable for the person on the receiving end. Lots of weird and wonderful myths were put about when the age regulations were first introduced. This guide will help employers and unions better understand the new laws and put them into action in the workplace.”
A copy of the guide can be downloaded here
