Training and Benefits

• You should not be influenced by age when making decisions over training. Excluding staff from training because of age, and giving other staff extra training because of their age will both be seen as age discrimination.

• There is nothing wrong with training new staff for their job, but if older workers did not receive that training you should be sure of giving them the opportunity to do it.

• You may use the number of years (up to a maximum of 5 unless strongly justified) of service an employee has with your company as a factor in deciding benefits (such as holiday pay or company cars). However, you must still avoid basing decisions on age. For example: Whilst it is ok to provide an extra days holiday pay to a staff member with 2 years experience, you must not then treat a younger (or older) employee with 2 years experience differently.

Sick Pay and Maternity Pay

• There is no age limit for sick pay, this also means that if you provide sick pay above the legal minimum (I.e.: as a benefit) you may not use age as a determining factor for that facility. (You may use length of service of up to 5 years as a factor)
  
• There are also no age limits on Maternity pay, Paternity pay or Adoption pay. As with sick pay, if you provide more than the legal minimum, you must not use age as a determining factor. (You may use length of service of up to 5 years as a factor)

Discrimination between Staff

Even if you have taken action to ensure that none of your work practices are age discriminatory, you need to monitor whether age discrimination occurs between your employees in the workplace.

• As a business owner, you (as well as your managers) are responsible for the treatment and health of your employees. Failing to act against serious age discrimination could leave you responsible for tribunal cases, especially if the discrimination causes stress to the employee.
  
• You need to make it clear to all employees and managers that age discrimination will not be tolerated, and that you will take action against it.

• Much age discrimination is seen as joking around by those who do it, and they may not realise they are being discriminatory. Use common sense to know when to give someone a quiet word or when to give someone a formal warning, but always deal with complaints of discrimination, however small they may seem.

• You could still be at risk of unfair dismissal claims if you do not use proper sacking procedures in the event of continued discrimination.

• Remember that age discrimination can apply to workers of any age, and you must deal with it in the same way for all ages. E.g.: You cannot act as if discrimination against older workers is worse than discrimination against younger workers.

Find out about the correct procedures for Sacking, Dismissal and Redundancy in our free article here.

Article Index

1. Age Discrimination Legislation - A Guide
2. Promotion, Dismissal and Training