Older People's Day marks new legislative changes relating to age discrimination and retirement in the workplace
30 | 09 | 2011
From 1 October 2011, changes to the
default retirement age will be in effect. The default retirement
age will be removed, enabling those over 65 to continue working and
make the choice of when they stop themselves.
On a day that celebrates older
people in every aspect, the rights of workers will see a
significant change as employers will no longer be able to retire
people at 65. Additionally, older workers will be offered the same
level of benefits as others in the company, including insurance
backed benefits such as medical expenses insurance and permanent
health insurance where the cost was prohibitive.
Employees have had protection from
being discriminated on the grounds of age since December 2006 but
Wales’ largest independent law firm, Hugh James Solicitors, have
recently noticed a significant rise in claims.
To add to this, research by Age UK
has found that an estimated 100,000 workers were forced to retire
in 2009 alone. This not only caused harm to those who wished to
work beyond retirement age but also hit hard on both a financial
and personal level too.
Emma Burns, head of employment and
HR at Hugh James Solicitors, says the number of employment tribunal
claims have been increasing over the last few years. She says: “The
protection for employees has been in effect since 2006 but it
wasn’t until 2008-2009 that an increase was noticed. That year saw
3,800 claims throughout England and Wales, 2009-2010 saw 5,200 and
this past year saw 6,800 claims. Although it is still possible for
employers to operate a compulsory retirement age, the company will
need to carefully justify it.”
Research by ACAS (Advisory,
Conciliation and Arbitration Service) shows there are tangible
benefits to employers retaining older members of staff. Some ways
in which employers can get the best out of their older workers is
to offer a more open job description with a wider variety of tasks,
sideways moves to other jobs, offer more responsibility on special
projects or offering them a mentor role to help develop and coach
junior colleagues.
Emma continued, “For many
employees, the law around compulsory retirement has been grossly
unfair. In many cases, employers who wanted to keep hardworking
older employees have opted not to do so because of the fear of
discrimination claims. This change means that employees can control
their own destiny and have greater flexibility with regard to
deciding when to give up work, but it will also help employers to
embrace the benefits of employing older workers.”
The Equality Act 2010 included
provisions making age discrimination in the provision of goods and
services unlawful, but these parts of the act have not been brought
into force yet and have been delayed.