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How much do you know about age-related employment law?

The Age and Employment Network (TAEN) is collaborating with the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) to establish an international award scheme for employers with the best policies for workers over the age of 50. 

Employers will be evaluated by an international panel of judges with wide business experience and winners will be chosen on the basis of key aspects of policy. Organisations have until 1 May 2008 to apply.

Find out more about the awards from TAEN 

Test yourself in our age regulations quiz and see how up to date you are with best practice.



1The Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 only apply to employees, office holders and partners.


2The regulations cover someone’s ‘apparent’ as well as their ‘real’ age.


3They allow employers to directly and indirectly discriminate on the grounds of age - under certain provisos.


4The regulations include a specific exemption for ‘positive action’.


5They require you to monitor your workforce by age.


6The regulations allow the government to still use different ages as thresholds or criteria in relation to public policy.


7When recruiting staff it is now unlawful to ask for someone’s date of birth on a job application form.


8It is unlawful to ask for a specific number of years’ experience.


9It is lawful to ask for specific qualifications.


10When recruiting it is unlawful to use words such as ‘work hard, play hard team’, ‘fast paced’, ‘youthful enthusiasm’, ‘mature’, ‘junior’, ‘’dynamic’ or ‘senior’ in job ads and person specs


11It is now unlawful to advertise job vacancies solely on the internet.


12It is unlawful to expect older candidates to undertake psychometric tests or attend assessment centres as part of the recruitment process.


13It is lawful to ask or expect a recruitment agency or headhunter to discriminate on your behalf.


14Succession planning processes which do not consider candidates older than the present post-holder are likely to be viewed as discriminatory.


15Setting minimum or maximum ages for employees to be eligible to be offered or participate in training is unlikely to be viewed as discriminatory.


16It's likely to be perceived as discrimination if last in, first out (LIFO) or first in, first out (FIFO) criteria is used for redundancy selection.


17Before the regulations came into effect the majority of employers in the UK operated a fixed retirement age.


18If you give less than six months' notice of retirement to an individual coming up to their 65th birthday, you could be fined up to eight weeks statutory pay.


19At present all ‘default retirement age’ tribunal claims are ‘on hold’ in Employment Tribunals in England and Wales.


20The Government intends to have completed and announce the outcome of its review on the Default Retirement Age on 1 October 2011 - the fifth anniversary of the regulations.


 
© Reed Business Information 2008