Prospect supports guidelines for good practice issued by the Department for Work and Pensions to promote the benefits of employing a mixed-age workforce, including:
- Removing age limits from recruitment advertisements and avoiding using words like “young” or “mature”
- Using a mixed-age interview panel in the selection process, wherever possible
- Promoting people on the basis of measurable performance and demonstrated potential rather than age
- Offering employees of all ages the opportunity to train and develop themselves, and encouraging reluctant older and younger workers by using employees who have benefited from training as role models
- Basing redundancy decisions on objective, job-related criteria. Automatically making workers over a certain age redundant, or operating a “last-in-first-out” system, will lead to a loss of key knowledge, skills and corporate memory
- Agreeing on a fair and consistent retirement policy with employees, offering pre-retirement support and, where possible, considering flexible or extended retirement options.
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