Employers show little concern over discrimination law

Employers
are underestimating the impact of the forthcoming legislation on age
discrimination, according to new research.

Research
released today by Equal Opportunities Review (EOR) shows that 70 per cent of UK
employers say they are not concerned about the impending changes, which must be
implemented by December 2006.

But
in order to comply with the measures, employers will have to review all of
their employment practices for age discrimination, including recruitment,
promotion, retirement, redundancy and their systems for unfair dismissal and
performance appraisal.

Currently,
almost half of employers do not even have a policy in place on age diversity or
age discrimination and few monitor promotion and training decisions by age.

EOR
researcher, Kate Godwin, said the recent delay by the Government in publishing
draft regulations has increased employer uncertainty and further shortened what
was already a tight timescale.

“Many
employers reported that they were delaying changes because they were waiting to
see the detail of the new legislation,” she said.

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EOR
surveyed 122 organisations, covering more than half a million employees
(547,463).

By Quentin Reade