We normally associate age discrimination with older people, but it is just as important to ensure you avoid treating younger workers less favourably.
A supermarket was taken to Tribunal when a manager became frustrated with a young employee’s attitude at work and called her a ‘stroppy little teenager’. They ended up paying her significant compensation as this was deemed to be harassment based on her age by an employment Tribunal.
Another case involved an 18 year old employee who had only worked for a company for two and a half months. When it transpired that her performance wasn’t good enough the employer naively – but probably trying to be kind so as not to hurt her feelings – told her that she was too young for such a job, and subsequently lost a Tribunal for age discrimination!
You will note that these cases involve both discrimination and harassment. From an employer’s perspective there is not much difference between the two, either term is fine. The most important thing is to make sure that employees behave in an appropriate way at work, as falling foul of either term risks losing a Tribunal even though you may think ‘the world has gone mad’!!!.
Behaviours likely to be deemed as either discrimination or harassment, whether related to age, sex, race or any of the other ’Protected Characteristics’ include jokes based on the issue, name calling, mimicking an individual’s voice or manner, stereotypical comments, and also non-verbal actions such as unwanted physical contact or ignoring a colleague.
The above 2 cases would be classed as ‘direct’ discrimination but another area to be mindful of is ‘indirect’ discrimination, which is where – often unknowingly and unintentionally – an organisation insists on a requirement that may seem to make sense on the face of it, but is more difficult for one group to comply with than another.
An example of potential indirect age discrimination would be insisting on 5 years’ experience in a job advert. This has been shown to be harder for young people to comply with than older colleagues as they tend to move roles more often and therefore it disadvantages them. So, unless you have objective evidence to show that 5 years is specifically needed, it is best to avoid insisting on such requirements.
It’s so important to train your employees in how to avoid discrimination, harassment, and bullying. To help employers with this we have produced a short, 40 minute e-learning training course in conjunction with the brilliant channel2learning online training specialist, covering all of these issues. Details to follow shortly.
Clearly this is a topical, and important subject. If you would like to discuss age discrimination or any other HR matters further please contact us.
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