United Kingdom: Age Legislation Not Ending Ageist Attitudes

Findings from the Recruitment Confidence Index (RCI), produced by Cranfield School of Management, suggest that organizations have a long way to go to eliminate age discrimination at work and become fully compliant with the recent UK legislation. Specifically, while 89% of organizations claim to have introduced or changed their policies and practices to comply with the legislation which came into effect on October 1, 24% do not have an age discrimination policy and only 54% provide training to managers with regard to age discrimination. Furthermore, one in seven of the responding HR managers admitted to being aware of current discriminatory policies and practices within their organization.

Commenting on the findings Dr Emma Parry, Research Fellow at Cranfield School of Management, said:

"These results give particular cause for concern as the respondents are HR managers, who should be responsible for championing the elimination of age discrimination within organisations. The results also demonstrate that the creation of policies regarding age discrimination is not enough. Training and education programmes are needed in order to address these attitudes and the discrimination that is commonly associated with them."

Source: Cranfield University School of Management Press Release (November 21, 2006)