Useful advice as to whether the new age laws prevent colleagues from sending each other birthday cards or employers running graduate recruitment schemes is contained in a guide published today by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and the TUC.
ëDeveloping a new mindset on age and retirementí is for both employers and trade union reps and aims to provide comprehensive guidance across all aspects of the new age regulations that came into force last October. Before any writing of the guide took place, the two organisations carried out a series of focus groups across the UK to find out exactly what about the new regulations was concerning employers and unions. The guide is based on what employers and trades union representatives in the focus groups identified as key concerns, one of which was confusion around employees sending each other birthday cards in case these were seen as ageist.
The guide will be launched later today (Tuesday) at a joint CIPD/TUC conference by Rt Hon Alistair Darling MP, DTI Secretary of State, at Congress House. The conference will be chaired by broadcaster Joan Bakewell, and the speakers include TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber, Commission for Equality and Human Rights Chair, Trevor Phillips and Robin Allen QC.
Dianah Worman OBE, CIPD Diversity Adviser comments, ìThe 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 helping employers to implement the new age regulations without falling into the trap of political correctness while still meeting business needs.
ìWe hope the guide will reassure employers and blow misconceptions out of the water. 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 ñ 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.î
Sarah Veale, the TUCís head of equality and employment rights said: ìThe 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.
ìAge 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.
ëManaging age: A guide to good employment practice has been produced with funding from the DTI and aims to show employers and unions how to develop good practice to make sure that they are meeting the requirements of the age regulations. The guide covers retirement; recruitment, selection and promotion; pay, benefits and pensions; health and safety; redundancy; and harassment.
CIPD and TUC launch new guide to clarify misunderstandings about new age laws
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