A Shoosmiths article on age discrimination has warned employers to take more care not to treat older workers unfairly.
The issue of discrimination on the basis of age has made the news, thanks to a number of high profile cases. TV racing commentator John McCririck is currently claiming age discrimination by Channel 4, stating that he was dismissed because of his age. And in 2011, Miriam O’Reilly, who was a presenter on Country File, won her age discrimination claim against the BBC.
The article recommends that organisations take a number of simple steps, mainly in the recruitment process, to ensure that unfair decisions are not made around the candidates’ ages. In terms of job advertisements, businesses should be careful not to set unnecessary requirements that will prevent people of a certain age from applying. This is usually a protection for younger workers as any requests to have a certain number of years of experience or a qualification that isn’t actually needed may exclude them. On the other side, words such as ‘energetic’ and ‘dynamic’ may give the impression that the company is only looking for young candidates.
In terms of interviewing, it is important to use objective criteria. One obvious example is to ensure that there is no section for dates of birth on application forms, but interviewers should also avoid using language that creates the wrong impression. The article cites the question ‘How would you feel about managing a young team?’, which suggests that there could be an age gap issue, and recommends that a more general question about team leadership would be more appropriate. Finally, a scoring system should be used to select the successful candidate from the interview process.
Going forward, it is recommended that training records are maintained and monitored to ensure that there is equal access and that there are policies in place to support these and recruitment activities.
Read the full article here: Recruitment: avoiding age discrimination pitfalls.
