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Age discrimination is not something that is confined to the UK, it’s
exists in many other countries. However, some countries such as America,
Canada and Australia have had laws in existence for many years which made
ageism an offence.
In the UK the Government launched the Code
of Practice on Age Diversity in Employment in June 1999. Among those
consulted during the drafting of the code were key employer and employee
representative groups, including the Employers Forum on Age, The
Recruitment and Employment Confederation, the TUC, CBI, Age Concern and
the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development.
This voluntary code was introduced to help
employers recognise the benefits of having an age-diverse workforce. The
code contained the following sections which helped the employer make
decisions concerning employees, that were made fairly, and were based on
merit instead of ageism.
- Recruitment - Recruit on the basis of
the skills and abilities needed to do the job.
- Selection - Select on merit by focusing
on application form information about skills and abilities and on
performance at interview.
- Promotion - Base promotion on the
ability, or demonstrated potential, to do the job.
- Training & Development - Encourage
all employees to take advantage of relevant training opportunities.
- Redundancy - Base decisions on objective
job-related criteria to ensure the skills needed to help the business
are retained.
- Retirement - Ensure that retirement
schemes are fairly applied, taking individual and business needs into
account.
Code of Practice - Results
Since the introduction of the Code of
Practice the outcome has been quite positive. More and more employers are
now aware of it’s existence, and the effects of it’s implementation in
specific areas such as recruitment remain encouraging. |