Age Discrimination and How to Prevent It

• Direct discrimination occurs when a decision is made on the basis of an employee’s age, or the age that they are perceived to be, e.g. selecting older employees for redundancy over their younger colleagues.
• Indirect discrimination occurs when an organizational practice or item of policy, which is designed to apply to all employees, creates a disadvantage for certain people based on their age. For example, redundancy based on a ‘last in, first out’ basis may amount to indirect discrimination under the new legislation because younger employees are likely to have a shorter length of service than older employees.

There are very good reasons for banishing age discrimination from the workplace:

• The working population is aging – within the EU, workers aged between 50 and 64 will increase by 25% in the next 20 years, while those aged 20 to 29 will decrease by 20% [2]. This means there will be fewer younger workers for hire, and an increasing number of older workers to have to recruit and manage.
• Employees are working longer due to increased life expectancy, and also because of dwindling pensions.
• The law is changing – since October 2006, employees have been legally protected from discrimination on the grounds of age.

Preventing Age Discrimination

For all organizations, it is far better and more cost-effective to concentrate on preventing age discrimination in the workplace, than to tackle it as and when it arises. There are many steps you can take to prevent age discrimination, some of which are outlined below:

Recruitment and Selection

• Ask job candidates to remove their date of birth from CVs and applications, in order to ensure that you hire based on skills and experience, regardless of age.
• Avoid putting age ranges on job adverts, (unless there is a very good reason for doing so) as this may be seen as discriminating against candidates outwith these ages. Care should also be taken with language, e.g. ‘dynamic team player’ may give the impression you are looking for someone young. Instead, focus on the nature of the job and the skills required.
• Advertise vacancies where applicants of all ages will be able to see them, including print and web-based media.
• Open up graduate and management training schemes to workers of all ages, where possible.
• Make use of panels of mixed ages when making decisions about employment or promotion.
• Consider using age profiling for recruitment and selection – this means recording the age of all job applicants, shortlisted candidates, interviewees and successful candidates to check if the process is fair for workers of all ages.

Employee Terms and Conditions

Offer employees terms, conditions and benefits that are appropriate to their experience, and the duties of the role, irrespective of age.

Appraisals and Promotion

• Avoid the temptation to allow performance appraisals of older employees to slip, even if you think they are about to retire. This may signal to the employees that their contribution is not valued, and may be regarded by others as positive discrimination. (Positive discrimination is where members of a particular group are given preference over others for no other reason than their belonging to that group.)
• Promote employees according to their potential as well as their past record of achievements, to give younger employees a more even playing field.

Training, Development and Transfers

• Ensure that training and development opportunities are made available to employees of all ages, throughout their career.
• Examine existing rules on job transfer to make sure they don’t discriminate against any particular age group.

Dismissal and Redundancies

• Remove the current upper age limit for unfair dismissal and redundancy rights in order to give older and younger workers the same rights.
• If dismissal or redundancy is necessary, the decision should be based on fair and non-discriminatory criteria, e.g. consistent poor performance, or the role is no longer required, and not on the grounds of an employee’s age.

Building Awareness

Age discrimination laws apply to everyone, not just key decision-makers. The best approach to preventing age discrimination occurring is to make sure all employees are aware of the new age legislation and how it will affect them and their behavior towards others. For example, age-related insults such as ‘wet behind the ears’ and ‘over the hill’ are likely to be seen less as office banter, and more as a form of harassment, going forward.

Conclusion

It is imperative that organizations comply with the age regulations in order to avoid age discrimination. Organizational policies should, therefore, be examined and amended in line with the legislation, and should include clear guidance on what constitutes discriminatory behavior and how harassment and victimization on the grounds of age can be prevented. [3] By offering detailed guidance, and making it clear to staff at all levels that discrimination will not be accepted, organizations can help make age discrimination a thing of the past.

Further Reading

Acas Guide: Age and the Workplace