Overtly ageist businesses will pay the price for such blinkered thinking – in a myriad of ways
An employment tribunal has granted a multi-million award to a senior executive dismissed by a firm that had a policy of only hiring people under the age of 45.
Dr Emily Andrews, our Deputy Director for Work, argues that companies refusing to hire older workers are harming themselves.
There’s not much that can shock me when it comes to ageism in the workplace. Having worked in this space for a long time, and heard many 50+ job applicant or employee recall their experiences of being treated unfairly solely because of their age, I thought I had seen it all.
But even I was taken aback somewhat with the news earlier this month of a landmark employment tribunal ruling in favour of engineering manager Glenn Cowie, who was dismissed and replaced by a younger female manager after his employer Vesuvius implemented a policy encouraging managers not to hire people over the age of 45.
The chief executive of the firm, which develops technology for molten metal processes, reportedly emailed Mr Cowie in 2018 to say that new recruits should be no older than 45, so the firm should only hire people “with enough time left in their career in order to develop”.
Having such a blinkered view of the value of older workers has proven to be a very costly error for the company – who it should be noted have appealed the decision.
In one of the largest employment tribunal awards in recent times, Mr Cowie received a total award of more than £3 million to cover his net financial losses, injury to feelings, and losses associated with his subsequent relocation and sale of his home.
Fortunately it is very rare for an organisation to be this explicitly ageist.
Organisations behaving in this way aren’t just breaking the law, they are also living in a fantasy land where demographic shifts aren’t happening. Our population is getting older – and the supply of younger workers is not infinite.
If you’re not hiring anyone over the age of 45, you are already shrinking the talent pool you can select from pretty substantially. I don’t understand any company who would want to make it more difficult for themselves to find the right people with the right skills.
As well as curbing their own prospects of meeting their skills and labour recruitment needs, such an approach is also actively damaging the UK’s productivity growth.
If we allow the skills and development of UK workers to stagnate after 45, the productivity crisis – in individual firms, and across the UK economy – will only get worse.
Analysis the Centre for Ageing Better did prior to the election showed giving older workers an equal opportunity in the labour market could boost the economy by as much as £9 billion a year.
By closing the employment rate gap between older and younger workers, the Treasury would also net an additional £1.6 billion a year in income tax and national insurance contributions.
While it may be rare to see such explicit ageism written into a company’s recruitment policies as seen in this example, the logic and thinking that underlies that decision are sadly far more widespread and prevalent.
We know that older workers receive significantly less opportunities for training and development in the workplace. Research shows that employees aged 55 and over are least likely to have received retraining of all kinds, from management and leadership, to technical and digital, to management skills.
Because of this, they miss out on economic benefits. But employers also miss out on the benefits of upskilling their most loyal employees.
It is absurd to think that older workers cannot develop past the age of 45. Our newly appointed Prime Minister, to give just one example, underwent a pretty drastic post-50 career move from the law into politics.
When the average UK employee stays in their role for less than five years, and older employees are the most likely to stay longer, to not view 50+ workers as worthy of your investment as an employer is grossly insulting. A company might reap the benefits of investing in the development of a 45-year-old employee for the next 20+ years.
Fortunately, many organisations can see the benefits to recruiting people at 45, 55 and even 65. We have more than 370 employers who have signed our Age-friendly Employer Pledge who recognise the importance and value of older workers and who are committed to taking action to improve work for people in their 50s and 60s to help them flourish in a multigenerational workforce.
Businesses with a higher proportion of older workers benefit hugely from their broader work and management experience and lower job turnover creating higher productivity.
In the end, it is these age-friendly employers who will be best placed to succeed as our country’s demographic changes.
This article was first published in Personnel Today
