What does the legislation mean to me and my staff?

As an employer you must think about your actions when:

Recruiting staff (how you advertise, interview and appoint employees)
Keeping staff (how you promote, train, treat and reward employees)
Losing staff (how you handle redundancies, retirements, dismissals and post dismissal situations, such as providing references)

Staff can claim age discrimination for an incident that took place before, during or after employment. Remember, too, that you can also be held responsible for the actions of your employees.

From 1 October, it will be against the law to:

• Take age into account when offering a job
• Include terms such as ‘bright young graduate’ or ‘experience required’ in job adverts
• Include a date of birth in a job application form
• Provide different employee benefits to staff based upon age
• Fire staff on a last-in, first-out basis if age has a bearing
• Retire staff before 65 years of age without good reason
• Allow ageist jokes to be told in the workplace

Click on the following links to find out more.

Recruitment
Promotion and training
Pay scales and employee benefits
Harassment
Redundancy
Retirement