The Equality Commission

Breastfeeding and the workplace

bgraham — Tue, 17 Oct 2023 09:54:23 +0000

Breastfeeding and the workplace bgraham Tue, 17/10/2023 - 10:54

Pregnancy at work

In this guide:

Health and safety of pregnant workers

Employers' additional health and safety obligations towards pregnant workers and female workers of childbearing age.
You have a legal duty to protect the health and safety of pregnant mothers at work. This includes workers who could be pregnant as well as those who you know are pregnant.

Workplace risk assessment

Some substances, processes, and working conditions may affect human fertility as well as pose a risk to a pregnant worker and/or her unborn child. Therefore, you must think about the health of women of childbearing age, not just those who have told you that they are pregnant.

If you employ women of childbearing age, you should, as part of your normal risk assessment, consider if any work is likely to present a particular risk to them - whether or not they might be pregnant.

As part of your legal duty to take measures to protect your workers, all employers must undertake a workplace risk assessment for their pregnant employees. For further information see risk assessment for pregnant workers and new mothers - employer guidance from the Health and Safety Executive NI (HSENI).

Notification from a pregnant worker

You should also encourage workers, eg via your fertility policy, pregnancy at work, maternity policy or staff handbook, to notify you as soon as possible if they become pregnant. This is so you can identify if any further action is needed.

You are entitled to ask a pregnant worker to provide:

notification of her pregnancy in writing

a certificate from a registered medical practitioner or a registered midwife showing that she is pregnant

Note that you do not have to:

begin to take any action in relation to a particular pregnant worker's health and safety until she gives you written notification

maintain any action in relation to her where she has failed to give you the certificate within a reasonable period of time - although you must have requested in writing to see the certificate

However, even if a pregnant worker has not formally notified you of her pregnancy, it is good practice to do a risk assessment for her if you become aware that she is pregnant.

Once a worker notifies you that she is pregnant, you should review the risk assessment for her specific work and identify any changes that are necessary to protect her health and that of her unborn baby. Involve the worker in the process and review the assessment as her pregnancy progresses to see if any further adjustments are needed.

For more information on health and safety risk assessments, see health and safety risk assessment.

Pre-maternity leave meeting

It is good practice for an employer to hold a pre-maternity leave meeting with an employee to discuss and agree issues such as:

handover and cover for her work during maternity leave

keeping in touch days (including the employee's preferred contact details and method)

receiving work related information

employees right to shared parental leave

annual leave

Potential hazards for pregnant workers

Things that might be hazardous to female employees - and pregnant workers in particular - include:

mental and physical fatigue caused by long working hours

night-time working

work-related stress

skin protection from sun exposure when working outdoors

excessive noise

extremes of cold and heat

threat of violence in the workplace

exposure to harmful substances, eg lead, radioactive materials, toxic chemicals like mercury and pesticides, infectious diseases, carbon monoxide, and antimitotic (cytotoxic) drugs

exposure to radiation

lifting/carrying heavy loads

working at heights

exposure to infectious diseases

sitting or standing still for long periods of time

unhealthy workstations or posture

lone working

exposure to vibration

If you identify a risk that could cause harm to your worker or their child, you must decide if you can control it. If you cannot control or remove the risk, you must do the following: eg adjust working conditions or working hours to avoid the risk or offer her suitable alternative work.

If this isn't possible, you must suspend the worker on paid leave for as long as necessary to protect their health and safety and that of their child.

Managing the health and safety of pregnant workers and new mothers - HSENI employer guidance.

Rest facilities for pregnant and breastfeeding mothers

You're required by law to provide somewhere for pregnant and breastfeeding mothers to rest.

Pregnant workers and breastfeeding mothers are entitled to more frequent rest breaks. You should talk to them so you can agree on the timing and frequency.

You are legally required to provide a suitable area where employees can rest, including somewhere to lie down if necessary. You must provide a private, hygienic, and safe room for nursing mothers to express milk if they choose to and somewhere to store breast milk, eg a fridge. Toilet facilities are not a suitable or hygienic place for this purpose.

See breastfeeding and the workplace.
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Medical suspension on maternity grounds

When an employee who is pregnant, or has recently given birth, or who is breast-feeding may have to be suspended from work on maternity grounds.
Where an expectant or new mother would be exposed to risk if she continued to perform her contractual duties, the employer is obliged to alter her working conditions or working hours if it is reasonable to do so and if it would avoid the risk. If it is not reasonable to make alterations, the employer must offer the employee suitable alternative work, or if that isn't possible, suspend the employee from work for as long as necessary to avoid the risk.

Right to the offer of alternative work

Where an employer has available suitable alternative work for an employee, the employee has a right to be offered the alternative work before being suspended from work on maternity grounds. For alternative work to be suitable for an employee for this purpose:

the work must be of a kind that is both suitable in relation to her and appropriate for her to do in the circumstances, and

the terms and conditions applicable to her for performing the work, if they differ from the corresponding terms and conditions applicable to her for performing the work she normally performs under her contract of employment, must not be substantially less favourable to her than those corresponding terms and conditions

In summary, an employee who is pregnant, has recently given birth, or who is breastfeeding may have to be suspended from work on maternity grounds if continued attendance might damage her, or the baby's health.

In general, the duty to suspend from work does not arise unless and until the employee has given the employer written notice that she is pregnant, has given birth within the previous six months, or is breastfeeding.

An employee who is suspended is entitled to full pay, which includes any bonuses or commissions they would have been paid. Their suspension should last until the risk to them, or their baby has been removed.

If the employee unreasonably refuses suitable alternative work the employer doesn't have to pay them.

An employee is entitled to make a complaint to an industrial tribunal if there is suitable alternative work available which her employer has failed to offer her before suspending her from work on maternity grounds. They can also complain to an industrial tribunal if they don't get the right amount of pay.
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Employees' right to paid time off for antenatal care

A pregnant employee is entitled to paid time off to attend antenatal care appointments during working hours.
All pregnant employees have the right to reasonable paid time off to attend antenatal care appointments. Employers should bear in mind that the right to paid time off is a right to be permitted time off during working hours and it will not be reasonable for the employer to avoid this by rearranging the individual's working schedule or requiring her to make up lost time.

Antenatal care covers not only medical examinations related to the pregnancy but also, for example, relaxation classes and parent-craft classes. There is no service requirement for this right.

However, the right to time off only applies if the appointment is recommended by a registered midwife, health visitor, registered nurse, or registered medical practitioner (eg a doctor).

Therefore, you are entitled to ask for evidence of antenatal appointments - except in the case of the very first appointment.

You can request that the employee show you:

written documentation from a registered medical practitioner, a midwife, or a health visitor confirming that she is pregnant

an appointment card or some other document showing that an appointment has been made

Reasonable time off for medical appointments

The law does not set out what 'reasonable' means regarding time off. Employees must request the time off and have a right not to be unreasonably refused time off. Tribunals are likely to find it unreasonable if an employer refuses to allow time off for appointments that are based on medical advice. Part-time employees should not be pressured to take appointments on their days off.

The amount of time off will depend on the time that the appointment is made, and it will not be unreasonable for an employer to expect an employee to attend for the part of the day that they can outside the appointment time. Time off also includes travelling time and waiting time for appointments. Abuse of the time off provisions may normally be handled under the absence management procedures but should be handled with caution.

See working when pregnant.

Payment during time off

You must pay the employee her normal hourly rate during the period of time off for antenatal care.

Where the employee is paid a fixed annual salary, she should simply be paid as normal. In other cases calculate the rate by dividing the amount of a week's pay by the number of the employee's normal working hours in a week. The normal working hours will usually be set out in her contract of employment.

If her weekly working hours vary, you should average them over the previous 12 complete working weeks. If the employee has yet to complete 12 weeks' service, estimate the average considering:

what could be reasonably expected from her contract of employment

the work pattern of any fellow employees in comparable jobs

Overtime is counted only if it is required and contractually guaranteed.

Labour Relations Agency (LRA) guidance on time off work rights and responsibilities.

Complaints relating to time off for antenatal care

A pregnant employee could bring an unlawful discrimination and/or unfair dismissal claim to a tribunal if you:

dismiss her or treat her unfairly because she tried to exercise her right to time off for antenatal care

unreasonably refuse her time off for antenatal care

deny her normal rate of pay during such time off

A pregnant employee can bring a claim regardless of whether or not:

she actually has exercised the right to paid time off for antenatal care

that right has actually been infringed

All she has to have done is act in good faith in seeking to assert the right.

See pregnant workers, dismissal and discrimination.

Time off to accompany to antenatal appointments

Following changes to the Work and Families Act (Northern Ireland) 2015, both employees and Agency workers, who have a qualifying relationship with the pregnant woman or her expected child, have the right to unpaid time off to attend up to two antenatal appointments. an agency worker will have rights to antenatal medical appointments and antenatal classes, after completing a 12-week qualifying period on the same assignment if they cannot reasonably arrange them outside working hours. The employee or agency worker must request the time off and cannot simply rely on these provisions as an after-the-fact justification for the absence from work.

A person in a qualifying relationship would include:

the husband or civil partner of the pregnant woman

a person who lives with the pregnant woman in an enduring family relationship (including same-sex couples) but is not a relative of that woman

the father of the expected child

a woman who is deemed to be the parent of the expected child under the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008

either of the intended parents who are expecting a child from a surrogate mother and who are eligible for and intend to apply for a Parental Order (or have obtained such an Order)

The time off for each appointment is capped at 6.5 hours.

Spouse or civil partner

Although the regulations state that a person is in a qualifying relationship with a pregnant woman if he or she is the husband or civil partner of that woman, it is presumably the case that this category would also extend to the wife of the pregnant woman. Paragraph 7.1 of Part 2 of the Marriage (Same-sex Couples) and Civil Partnership (Opposite-sex Couples) (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2019, provides that any reference in legislation to a person who is married is to be read as including a reference to a person who is married to a person of the same sex.
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Pregnant workers, dismissal and discrimination

How employers can ensure they stay on the right side of sex discrimination law and appropriately 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ pregnant workers.
You must not treat a worker unfairly because she is pregnant. This may result in a claim of sex discrimination. Such unfair treatment includes dismissal.

Pregnancy and dismissal

It is an automatically unfair dismissal if you dismiss - or select for redundancy - an employee solely or mainly:

for a reason relating to her pregnancy

because she tried to assert her right to paid time off for antenatal care - see employees' right to paid time off for antenatal care

Only employees can claim unfair dismissal, but all workers can claim unlawful sex discrimination if they are dismissed or treated unreasonably for a reason relating to their pregnancy.

Sex discrimination

It amounts to unlawful sex discrimination if you:

treat a pregnant worker unfairly for a reason relating to her pregnancy

dismiss a pregnant worker solely or mainly for a reason relating to her pregnancy

dismiss - or select for redundancy - a pregnant employee solely or mainly for a reason relating to her pregnancy

dismiss - or select for redundancy - a pregnant employee solely or mainly because she tried to assert her right to paid time off for antenatal care - see employees' right to paid time off for antenatal care

refuse to interview or employ a job applicant solely or mainly on the grounds that she is pregnant (or you believe that she may be, or may become, pregnant)

You can never justify this type of discrimination.

As pregnancy-related dismissals are discriminatory, it's likely that a pregnant employee would not only claim unfair dismissal but also unlawful sex discrimination. There is a limit on the amount of compensation a tribunal can award for unfair dismissal but not for unlawful discrimination.

A pregnant worker would only be able to claim unlawful sex discrimination, but there is still no limit on any tribunal compensation they might receive.

Download Equality Commission and Labour Relations Agency employer guidance on pregnancy and maternity at work (PDF, 3.25MB).
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Breastfeeding and the workplace

How employers can 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ employees to continue breastfeeding on their return to work after maternity leave.
There are business benefits for employers who take proactive steps to discuss and promote breastfeeding with employees returning from maternity leave to help facilitate their transition back to work.

Business benefits

Increased motivation of employees and a better working culture, leading to greater flexibility and better communication.

Health and wellbeing benefits to your employees.

Reduction in absenteeism and staff turnover.

Increased quality, greater levels of innovation and creativity, and improved productivity.

Overall improved customer service.

Raised public image of the company and competitive advantage, making it more attractive as an employer of choice.

Contributes to an inclusive working culture.

Breastfeeding and rest periods

Employers are required by law to provide somewhere for breastfeeding employees to rest. Where necessary, this should include somewhere for them to lie down.

Although there is no legal right for an employee to take time off from their job in order to breastfeed, express milk for storage and later use, or take rest periods you should consider adapting working hours to enable an employee to continue to breastfeed or express milk. A refusal to adapt working hours could be indirect sex discrimination unless the employer can show the refusal is justified by the needs of the business.

Breastfeeding facilities

Employers are legally required to provide somewhere for breastfeeding employees to rest. Where necessary, this should include somewhere for them to lie down. Employers should consider providing a private, healthy and safe environment for employees to express and store milk, for example, it is not suitable for new mothers to use toilets for expressing milk.

Breastfeeding workplace policy

It is good practice to have a written workplace policy on breastfeeding clearly outlining the employer and employee's responsibilities. This will provide clarity around how requests can be made and will be considered by the employer. This will assist you in making objective, correct, and fair decisions. Implementing such a workplace policy demonstrates your principles and commitment as an employer to 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶing employees who are breastfeeding to help create a positive and inclusive workplace where discrimination in any form is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.

Workplace health and safety for breastfeeding employees

There may be a number of risk factors in the workplace that may be harmful to a breastfeeding employee or her child’s health. You should take steps to identify these risks and consider how you can remove them for the safety of your employees.

For further information, see health and safety of pregnant workers.
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Fertility treatment and the workplace

How employers can 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ employees undergoing fertility treatment.

A woman undergoing fertility treatment, such as in vitro fertilisation (IVF), is treated as being pregnant after fertilised eggs have been implanted. If the implementation fails, the protected period, during which a woman must not be treated unfavourably on the grounds of her pregnancy, ends two weeks later.

It is unlawful sex discrimination for employers to treat a woman less favourably because she is undergoing fertility treatment or intends to become pregnant. A woman will be entitled to paid time off for antenatal care only after the fertilised embryo has been implanted. See having a child through IVF.

Supporting employees going through fertility treatment

For employees undertaking fertility treatment, it can be a long and difficult road both emotionally and physically. There will be obvious practicalities of medical appointments, getting used to new medications, and perhaps undergoing medical procedures. Employer understanding, 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ, and flexibility can often make a significant difference to someone at a difficult and potentially challenging time of their life. It's not just women who may require 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ, their partner may also require 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ and understanding in their difficult journey through fertility treatment.

Due to the personal nature of fertility treatment, employers should recognise and respect that employees have a right to privacy and may choose not to ask for 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ or wish for the matter to remain confidential. However, developing a compassionate culture with explicit 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ for employees going through fertility treatment can help overcome the taboo and encourage individuals to access the 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ they need.

Having a clear policy in place which tells people about the 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ the employer can offer, might go some way to breaking down the barriers, provided they feel their employer can be trusted to treat them fairly and they won't be penalised in some way. Raising awareness of fertility treatment amongst your workforce and equipping line managers on what to say and how to offer 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ through appropriate education and training can also help employees open up and feel comfortable asking for help.

Download Equality Commission and Labour Relations Agency employer guidance on pregnancy and maternity at work (PDF, 3.25MB).

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Get help to review your equality-related workplace policies

bgraham — Tue, 21 Sep 2021 08:26:17 +0000

Get help to review your equality-related workplace policies bgraham Tue, 21/09/2021 - 09:26

Implement an equality plan

In this guide:

What is an equality plan?

Your equality plan allows you to integrate equality into your performance management system and corporate planning processes.
An equality plan outlines how your company's equality and diversity policy will be implemented.

Your equality and diversity policy should explain your business' stance on diversity and set out the legal rights and obligations of your staff. It is your promise to treat all employees, and potential employees, fairly and considerately.

See equality and diversity workplace policies.

Your equality plan allows you to integrate equality into your performance management system, quality initiatives, and corporate planning processes.

You may draft an equality plan that focuses on one particular protected equality ground (such as racial group, sex, or disability) or, alternatively, on two or more grounds, or, to take a fully integrated approach, on all of the protected equality grounds.

Equality plan templates

The Equality Commission has published two template equality plans that may assist you in drafting your own:

racial equality plan template (DOC, 50K)

an integrated equality plan template (DOC, 151K) for all protected equality grounds

The Equality Commission can provide further assistance on request, such as where you may wish to develop an equality plan that focuses on any other specific equality ground (such as sex or disability).

Equality plans can also be used to develop plans to promote affirmative and positive action where this is deemed appropriate.

Equality plan sample template

The Equality Commission 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶs businesses to promote good equality practice and can help you to develop an equality plan for your business.

It has developed a sample equality plan document that you can download and customise for your own needs.

Download the Equality Commission's sample employment equality plan (DOC, 151K).
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Advantages of workplace equality plans

Developing a workplace equality plan can bring a number of benefits to your business.
Having an effective equality plan in place will enable you to coordinate all equality-related work throughout your business. In addition, it will allow you to prepare for upcoming developments in legislation and best practice.

Advantages of having an equality plan

Developing a workplace equality plan can produce a number of business benefits.

It can help you:

identify gaps and potential problem areas in your business

raise awareness of your business's commitment to equality

demonstrate actions undertaken to avoid discrimination in case of tribunal proceedings

carry out equality training and awareness with employees

access private investment, public procurement, and funding where commitment to equality of opportunity may be an eligibility factor

Your equality plan will also ensure that you revise your other employment policies eg bullying and harassment and redundancy policies, to ensure they also comply with equality standards.

Developing an equality plan with the Equality Commission

You can receive 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ from the Equality Commission to develop an equality plan for your business.

By accessing this 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ, you will also avail of their full range of speciality knowledge, training, guidance, and 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ and you will be able to work with Equality Commission staff to develop examples of good practice which could be promoted on the Equality Commission website. See equality plans.

Business benefits of an equality plan

Watch the video below of Paul Oakes, Manager of the Advisory Services Team at the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland, who explains how a business can benefit from developing an equality plan.

Paul also details the four steps a business should take when implementing an equality plan and explains how the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland can provide various means of 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ to businesses.
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How to develop an equality plan

Practical steps to develop a workplace equality plan tailored to the specific needs of your business.
The Equality Commission can help you develop a workplace equality plan that will be tailored to the specific needs of your business.

Your equality plan should provide you with a practical and manageable framework for undertaking all equality work within your business.

Equality planning will also help you to assess what further work you need to undertake to promote good practice and it may also show areas where you need to ensure you meet legal requirements.

Step 1: Review your existing equality practices

When starting to develop your equality plan, you should first review your current employment practices against the Equality Commission's equality indicators. You can find these in the Equality Commission's template equality plan (DOC, 151K).

Reviewing your employment practices will help you determine the extent to which your workplace policies meet current equality legislation requirements and best practices.

You can then develop an equality plan outlining the actions you intend to take to remedy any areas of non-compliance.

Step 2: Draw up an equality plan

Your workplace equality plan should include:

an outline of how your equality and diversity policy will be implemented - including set dates, how these will be implemented, and by whom

a flexible structure that can be tailored to your specific needs

a review of your other employment policies eg recruitment and selection, redundancy, bullying, and harassment

a way of integrating equality into performance management systems, quality initiatives, and corporate planning processes

how you will evaluate your success and how and when you will review the overall working of your equality policy

an ongoing equality training plan for all staff

Step 3: Train staff and promote equality across the workplace

You should establish equality awareness training within your business to 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ your workplace equality plan. Staff at all levels should be involved in this training.

New employees should receive equal opportunity awareness training as part of their induction process. See preparing for an induction.

The training should show your commitment to the promotion of equality of opportunity and the effective implementation of your equality plan.

Equality training should be ongoing, with an annual update for all employees. See staff training.
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Equality monitoring and review of your business

Monitoring can help you to identify equality issues or problems that affect your employees.
A critical stage in delivering equality in the workplace is to monitor the effectiveness of your equality policy and plan to ensure they are both working in practice.

Monitoring demonstrates your commitment to promoting equality within your business. It can also help you identify equality issues or problems that affect your employees and can help you implement solutions such as alternative policies or practices.

What does equality monitoring involve?

Equality monitoring involves gathering individual information from potential and existing employees at certain times and then comparing and analysing this against other groups of employees in your business or the broader workforce.

You should only collect information that you are going to use.

Ask job applicants for monitoring data on a sheet that can be detached from their application form so that the information can be kept separate from the selection process. It should be made clear that this information will only be used for equality monitoring and not in the short-listing process.

Download a sample monitoring questionnaire for job applicants (DOC, 13K).

To obtain an accurate view of your business you will also need to monitor the existing workforce. Explain your reasons for equality monitoring and make it clear you are only trying to ensure that every employee has the same access to training, promotion, and other opportunities.

Take action on equality processes

If you find some of your equality processes aren't working, you should find out why and take action.

For example, if you find your business is not attracting the number of jobseekers you might expect, you should look at your recruitment and selection procedures. Is one group benefiting at the expense of another?

If it is shown that this is the case, you should take affirmative or positive action, such as:

encourage more people to apply for posts by considering job-sharing and part-time working

advertise widely to attract a diverse workforce

offer work experience opportunities or mentoring for students

For more information on the equality monitoring process, see the Equality Commission guidance on monitoring.
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Get help to review your equality-related workplace policies

How to access help and advice from the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland to develop and improve workplace equality policies.
The Equality Commission for Northern Ireland offers employers free and confidential help to review and get the most from their workplace equality policies.

With many employees taking steps to return to the workplace after months spent working from home, now may be the time to think about reviewing your workplace policies such as those relating to:

equal opportunities

harassment

recruitment and selection

pregnancy and maternity

menopause

flexible working and others

You may even be considering introducing a customer service policy, particularly taking into account those customers and clients with disabilities.

If you’ve made a commitment to equality and diversity in your business, the Equality Commission may be able to help you review your equality policies and provide a free and confidential service to businesses. Many businesses have already made use of this service and some have also availed of free training from the Equality Commission.

How do I make use of the Equality Commission service?

If your business is interested in reviewing its equality-related workplace policies you can contact Paul Oakes, Equality Commission's Advisory Services Team Manager, by emailing poakes@equalityni.org.

Find out about the 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ available for employers and service providers from the Equality Commission.
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Implement an equality plan

Creating and updating workplace policies to focus on diversity and inclusion - Greiner Packaging Ltd

Maeve Turbitt, People & Culture Generalist, explains how Greiner Packaging has reviewed existing workplace policies and developed new ones focusing on equality and diversity with the help of the Equality Commission.

Greiner Packaging Limited is a plastic packaging manufacturer and provider of customised packaging solutions specialising in technologies such as thermoforming, injection moulding, and extrusion. Their customer portfolio includes Nestle, Premier Foods, Yeo Valley, and Dale Farm. Based in Dungannon, Co. Tyrone, the organisation is one of four divisions of the Greiner Group, with headquarters in Austria.

Maeve Turbitt, People & Culture Generalist, explains how Greiner Packaging has reviewed existing workplace policies and developed new ones focusing on equality and diversity with the help of the Equality Commission.

“Greiner Packaging has a wide range of workplace policies currently in place that help colleagues understand what is expected of them when working for and representing Greiner. We have over 30 workplace policies that all colleagues are aware of and can consult at any time through the company handbook. We also have policies that relate specifically to equality and diversity in the workplace including our equal opportunities policy and positive work environment policy.”

“We have developed our workplace policies so that colleagues know how they are expected to behave whilst working for and representing Greiner. These policies also ensure we as employers are fair and consistent in our approach to all our people. This process delivers an open and transparent atmosphere, helps us retain staff, and attract the right people to come to work for us.”

Delivering diversity and inclusion through our workplace policies

“We have previously worked with the Equality Commission after attending a number of their employer training events and so became aware of the service they offer to Northern Ireland employers in helping them to review their workplace policies from an equality point of view.”

“We then worked with the Equality Commission to review our equal opportunities policy and positive working environment policy. The Equality Commission helped us to rewrite our policies to ensure that as an organisation, we are committed to creating a friendly and harmonious working environment - free from harassment and bullying and treating every colleague with respect and dignity.”

“After reviewing and rewriting our policies, we reissued them to all our people along with a new code of conduct. This commitment clearly outlines to our workforce our dedication to diversity and inclusion right across the organisation.”

“In conjunction with the Equality Commission, we also delivered training sessions to all our colleagues on diversity and inclusion. We hosted these training sessions both virtually and face-to-face to enable us to reach and educate our entire workforce of over 300 people.”

“By reviewing our workplace policies and having a commitment to delivering diversity and inclusion, it ensures that we provide equal opportunities to all job applicants and helps us to promote a respectful and harmonious working environment for everyone. We have also identified the need to provide a mechanism for workers who believe they have been discriminated against to enable them to raise any matters sensitively through the appropriate procedure.”

Our plans to introduce new workplace policies

“We plan to take a look at introducing a number of new workplace policies that will help 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ colleagues that are affected by symptoms of menopause. We have just begun this process by looking at the guidance available from the Equality Commission and the Labour Relations Agency. We have also attended one of their joint webinars on the subject of menopause in the workplace. This engagement will help give us the foundation we need to take the steps required to introduce a menopause policy to our organisation.”

“Greiner Packaging has also identified the heartache and stress that miscarriage can bring. We also plan to introduce a workplace policy on miscarriage that will help give any colleague affected by miscarriage the time, space, and 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ they need during such a traumatic time.”

Find out how the Equality Commission can help your business review its equality related workplace policies.

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Menopause in the workplace

bgraham — Fri, 21 May 2021 08:13:20 +0000

Menopause in the workplace bgraham Fri, 21/05/2021 - 09:13

Menstruation, menstrual health and menopause in the workplace

In this guide:

Menstruation and menstrual health 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ in the workplace

Practical steps employers can take to provide 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ around menstrual health-related symptoms and conditions in the workplace.
By offering appropriate 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ around menstrual health-related symptoms and conditions in the workplace, employers can enable employees to work at their best, minimise absence and prevent the loss of key talent.

Steps for workplace menstruation and menstrual health 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ

Build an open and inclusive culture

Employers must develop a workplace culture that encourages open conversations and psychologically 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶive conditions. Employees working in such an environment are more likely to talk about menstrual health-related symptoms and conditions, as well as specific physical or mental health symptoms, or ask for adjustments to enable them to continue working without fearing criticism, ridicule, or discrimination.

Staff should feel able to talk and be comfortable approaching colleagues and human resources with the knowledge they will be listened to and receive appropriate 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ and understanding.

Raise awareness and end the taboos and stigma

There are several ways an employer can raise menstrual health awareness in the workplace, including:

Gain buy-in and 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ from senior managers. This commitment helps to foster positive attitudes towards menstruation and menstrual health conditions.

Provide facilities where employees can access menstrual products.

Establish a staff network 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶed by allies where people can meet to discuss issues, and challenges and share experiences.

Acknowledge menstrual health as a normal life experience in wellness discussions or blogs.

Promote and engage with specific days or weeks for dedicated menstrual health issues.

Consider developing a menstruation and menstrual health policy and ensure employees know about it and can easily access it.

Provide training and 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ for line managers

Tailored training for line managers on menstrual health will ensure they are confident and comfortable discussing it in the workplace. They will also better understand the impact on those employees with ongoing menstrual health conditions and how challenges should be addressed sensitively and confidentially.

Ensure line managers are trained to 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ all employees based on individual needs and know where to go for further information or 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ, for example, human resources, health and safety, occupational health, and external providers.

Managers should be alert to and act swiftly to address inappropriate jokes, remarks, or banter on menstruation and menstrual health in the workplace.

Employers should respect that menstrual health is a private matter for some employees, even as they strive to normalise it as a topic of conversation in the workplace.

Practical 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ and workplace policies

In many cases, menstruation will be self-managed by the employee privately without needing workplace 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ. However, there are ways in which an employer can make the workplace 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶive. These include:

access to well-maintained toilets, washrooms or changing facilities

provide easy and free or subsidised access to menstrual products as well as hygienic disposal in all toilets and changing facilities

provide fresh drinking water and facilities to make hot drinks

consult with employees on uniform design

have a spare supply of uniforms, of diverse sizes

ensure suitable rest breaks between shifts

offer flexible working arrangements, including location and tasks

review risk assessment, where these are deemed necessary

introduce workplace menstruation champions with relevant training and resources

offer access to a quiet space for short breaks, if needed, during the working day

staff health and wellbeing surveys to include menstrual health to ensure workplace needs are being met

implement a menstruation and menstrual health policy with input from employees and, where applicable, workplace representatives

cross reference the menstruation and menstrual health policy with other relevant workplace policies, such as those relating to health and wellbeing, menopause transition, sickness absence, performance management, and flexible working to ensure a fair and consistent approach

Performance and absence management

It is important to avoid assuming that an employee's performance may be affected by their menstrual health or symptoms. However, it is worth acknowledging that women may experience a range of uncomfortable symptoms that can be challenging, particularly while at work. Performance management should focus on 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶing employees to perform their best, including addressing any underlying health issues.

Absence management policies that include trigger points are likely to be of concern to employees with long-term menstrual health conditions. A flexible and individualised approach can prevent presenteeism and avoid unfairly penalising employees with ongoing menstrual health conditions.

Monitor and review

You should monitor and review the effectiveness of workplace policies and procedures to ensure they are aligned with other relevant policies, remain fit for purpose, and are communicated to all line managers and staff.
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Menopause in the workplace

Why employers should address menopause in the workplace and how to 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ staff affected by menopausal symptoms.
The menopause is a natural stage of life that is usually experienced by women between 45 and 55 years of age. However, some women can experience the menopause before 40 years of age.

Why should employers consider menopause in the workplace?

Most women will experience menopausal symptoms. However, it can affect people differently, and no two people will experience it in the same way. Some of these symptoms, which may be physical, psychological, emotional, and cognitive can be quite severe and have a significant impact on everyday activities.

Employers have a legal duty of care to their employees under health and safety law and must ensure menopausal symptoms are not made worse by workplace conditions and/or work practices. Employers must also make reasonable adjustments to help employees manage their symptoms when doing their job. See employers’ health and safety responsibilities.

Statutory equality law does not expressly provide protection for menopause, but as menopause is a female condition, any detrimental treatment of a woman related to menopause could represent direct or indirect sex discrimination. If a woman experiences serious symptoms from the menopause transition that amount to a mental or physical impairment, which has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on her ability to carry out day-to-day activities, this could be classed as a disability under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (as amended for Northern Ireland). Failure to make reasonable adjustments could lead to a discrimination claim. See prevent discrimination and value diversity.

It also makes good business sense to try to understand and accommodate the needs of staff experiencing menopausal symptoms. An employer who does this is likely to gain greater staff loyalty, lower absenteeism rates, and higher productivity. It will also help you retain valuable talent.

Recognise and address menopause as a workplace issue

There are a number of actions that you can take to 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ employees affected by menopause. These have been outlined below.

Review current employment policies and procedures

To determine if there are adjustments you could make to 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ staff experiencing menopausal symptoms. Developing a workplace wellbeing policy that recognises menopause and actively involves staff in the development process is a good starting point.

Risk assessment

Carry out a risk assessment that considers the specific needs of menopausal women. This will fulfil your legal responsibility for health and safety and also ensure an employee’s symptoms aren’t being exacerbated by their job. See health and safety risk assessment.

Raise menopause awareness

Break the stigma by raising awareness of menopause within the workplace which will encourage openness in challenging negative and stereotypical attitudes. Information and education about menopause should be included as part of the organisation’s diversity and inclusion training for the whole workforce.

Communication

Have regular and informal one-to-one meetings with staff as this can provide the opportunity for someone to raise changes in their health situation including menopause. Employers should communicate their positive attitude towards menopause so that all employees know that their employer is 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶive of the issue.

Access to 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ and guidance

Sometimes staff may find it difficult to know where to start to find information and advice on menopause so consider providing your staff with access to trusted online resources on the topic. You could make this available through a dedicated company intranet page with signposts to trusted external expertise and guidance.

Support from senior management

Get buy-in and 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ from senior management in your organisation. This will help raise awareness and develop positive attitudes towards the menopause. Senior management 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ can also facilitate an open, inclusive, and 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶive culture.

Identify appropriate adjustments

Some adjustments you could make would be considering shift patterns, offering flexible working, making sanitary products available in washrooms, or having temperature-controlled areas. Remember that each individual can be affected differently so you should always tailor any adjustments to an individual’s specific needs.

Training

Provide line managers with effective training so they have a broad understanding of menopause and the reasons why this is an important workplace issue. Line managers need to be confident as well as competent in having sensitive conversations to 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ staff experiencing menopausal symptoms. Knowing risk assessments and practical adjustments can be helpful. Extending training to all staff can help raise menopause awareness across the organisation.

Performance management

There should never be assumptions about how an individual’s performance has been impacted but it should be recognised that women can experience a wide range of uncomfortable symptoms that can pose a challenge to their daily lives including at work. Performance management should be a positive process and the focus must be on the 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ needed to help everyone perform to the best of their ability, including taking on board any underlying health issues.

Menopause guidance for employers

The Irish Congress of Trade Unions, the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland, and the Labour Relations Agency have produced guidance for employers, employees, and trade union representatives to help promote equality in employment for women affected by menopause.

The guidance includes:

information on menopause in terms of staff health and safety

equality considerations for employers

checklist to help employers examine if current policies and procedures meet the needs of women with menopausal symptoms

best practice examples from local organisations implementing menopause policies

tribunal decisions related to menopause

links to further advice and guidance

Download Promoting Equality in Employment for Women Affected by Menopause (PDF, 1.46MB).

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) also has guidance on the menopause at work: guide for people professionals and menopause at work: guide for people managers.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has published menopause in the workplace: guidance for employers.
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Retain and retrain older workers

bgraham — Fri, 28 Jun 2019 11:34:57 +0000

Retain and retrain older workers bgraham Fri, 28/06/2019 - 12:34

Employing and 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶing older workers

In this guide:

Employment rights of older workers

How employers can meet the legal rights of older workers including retirement age, age discrimination, and caring for dependants including grandchildren and parents.
Employers should fully understand employment rights and the role of equal opportunities, practices, and procedures relating to older workers.
Recent years have seen the introduction of various policy reforms to encourage the participation and retention of older workers in employment.
How to prevent workplace age discrimination
It is generally unlawful for an employer to discriminate on the grounds of age - ie, to treat individuals of any age less favourably than others on the grounds of age.
Recruitment
To avoid age discrimination, you should check that your recruitment process is non-discriminatory. For example, aim to place advertisements in publications read by a range of age groups. Also, avoid using terms that imply a particular age group, such as 'mature', 'enthusiastic', 'highly experienced', or 'recent graduate'. See avoid discrimination when recruiting staff.
Redundancies
If you are making employees redundant, you should similarly ensure that you base procedures on business needs rather than age. For example, it could be discriminatory to select employees for redundancy solely based on when they joined your business - 'last in, first out'. See redundancy and lay-offs.
When age discrimination may be lawful
There are limited circumstances when age discrimination can be lawful. To read about age discrimination exceptions and examples, see age discrimination.
Develop age-related work policies
Age discrimination can affect workers of any age. Having an equal opportunities policy that explicitly mentions age could indicate your commitment to the fair treatment of and eliminating discrimination against workers of all ages. See equality and diversity workplace policies.
Training
You should also ensure appropriate training is provided to your managers and staff on workplace discrimination, with some focus on age discrimination. This will help to increase awareness of age discrimination and how to minimise it in the workplace.
Understand the rules for retirement
The statutory default retirement age in the UK was abolished in 2011. As a result, if an employer forces an employee to retire once they reach a certain age, that act would be direct age discrimination and is likely to be unlawful unless it can be objectively justified. See retirement ages and procedures.
An employee can retire voluntarily at a time that they choose and beyond their state pension age unless the job has a lawfully justified 'compulsory retirement age'. The reasons for compulsory retirement may include exceptional circumstances such as:
the job requires certain physical abilities (eg, in the construction industry)
the job has an age limit set by law (eg, commercial pilots)
Employers who set compulsory retirement age rules, also known as Employer Justified Retirement Ages (EJRA), must consider whether that retirement age can be objectively justified, for example, in terms of workforce planning, or the health and safety of individual employees, their colleagues, and the public. In addition, an employer will need to demonstrate that the compulsory retirement age is objectively justified; ie, that it is a proportionate means of achieving that objective.
See the Equality Commission's guide for employers on age discrimination in Northern Ireland (PDF, 1.53MB).
Provide flexible working arrangements
Older workers may prefer flexible working arrangements.
Every employee has the statutory right to request flexible working for any reason after 26 weeks of employment. Employees can make one flexible working application every 12 months. A year runs from the date the most recent application was made. If you accept an employee's flexible working request, this will be a permanent change to their contractual terms and conditions unless you agree otherwise.
There are different forms of flexible working, for example, homeworking, temporary contracts, part-time, flexitime, or job sharing. Employers should ensure the equal promotion of flexible working to staff of all ages. Develop clear procedures and criteria for how to apply for flexible working. See flexible working: the law and best practice.
Caring for grandchildren and dependants: rights at work
Apart from the right to request flexible working arrangements, outlined above, under employment law in Northern Ireland grandparents, generally, have no other statutory rights to paid or unpaid time off to care for their grandchildren.
Grandparents may have the right to parental leave in limited circumstances if they have adopted the child or have a residence order made in their favour giving them parental responsibility. Employees must have one year's employment service, and parental leave can be taken up until the child's 18th birthday. See parental leave entitlement.
All employees have the right to reasonable time off for dependants to deal with emergencies or unforeseen matters involving someone who depends on them for caring responsibilities. This could be to deal with a breakdown in childcare or if a child falls ill. It could also be used to deal with caring responsibilities for older relatives or parents who may be ill. Employers do not have to pay for this time off, but some employers may under the terms and conditions of employment. See time off to deal with emergencies involving dependants.
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Advantages of employing and retaining older workers

Key benefits that employing and retaining older workers can bring to businesses.
There is a wide range of advantages that employing older workers can bring to your business, especially when you have a mix of different ages across your workforce.
Age-diversity benefits
Age diversity can bring many benefits to your business. Employers can reap the benefits of experience and loyalty that older workers can bring. There may also be broader advantages for others within the workplace.
Working in an age-diverse team brings benefits, including fresh perspectives, knowledge-sharing, and improved problem-solving. Where there is an age-diverse workforce, businesses have seen advantages including:
increased productivity
skills diversity
better inclusiveness
opportunities for mentorships
improved staff retention
Benefits of employing older workers
Employing older workers can bring the following advantages to your business:
Experience and knowledge
Older workers bring life experience as well as accumulated knowledge from many years of working. You can tap into these strengths to help overcome workplace challenges and identify business opportunities.
New ideas and opportunities
If you are developing new ideas or searching for new business opportunities, an age-diverse workforce can prove helpful in weighing up the potential risks and benefits. Such foresight can help suggest new ideas or efficient ways of doing things.
Focused workers
Older workers are likely to analyse business tasks from a measured or calculated point of view rather than from an emotional one. This, in turn, can lead to fewer mistakes.
Problem-solving
Older workers with their experience, maturity, and often calming influence can help solve problems that may arise in the workplace, whether they are difficult business decisions or workplace conflict.
Positive role models
Older workers can be a positive influence on younger or less experienced workers. They often perform well in training or mentoring roles.
Resilience
Older workers are likely to have experienced difficult times throughout their working life, and so are often resilient when faced with a business challenge.
Commitment
On average, older workers report higher job satisfaction and are less likely to switch jobs. A reduction in staff turnover can create stability in the workforce and is more cost-effective than recruiting and retraining new staff. See control staff turnover.
Adaptability
Older workers are likely to have experienced frequent changes during their working careers, so they often adapt well to the need for new skills and changing technology.
Responsibility
Older workers are inclined to take on roles that require a level of responsibility, such as management positions, and are often willing to accept accountability if things go wrong.
Customer service
Older workers usually place value on customer service, which can help you similarly maintain a focus on providing quality service.
Consider the challenges too
Despite the many advantages, there are some possible challenges for employers managing older workers, as with staff of any age. See ageing workforce: challenges for staff and employers.
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Ageing workforce: challenges for staff and employers

How employers can identify and address the challenges of an ageing workforce.

The steps for effectively managing older workers are the same as for staff of any age. However, there are some issues that affect older workers in particular. It is important to understand the challenges that older employees might face and take steps to 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ them.
Challenges for older workers
Challenges for older workers can include:
Age discrimination
There are often stereotypes of older workers being less agile, technophobic, more prone to sickness absence, and resistant to change. Read how to avoid age discrimination.
Part-time or flexible working requirements
Part-time work and the demand for flexible working are more common among older workers than among younger age groups. Ensure the equal promotion of flexible working to all staff. Develop clear procedures and criteria for how to apply for flexible working.
See flexible working for over 50s - a toolkit for employers (PDF, 3.63MB).
Physical or mental challenges of job roles
Employers must make reasonable adjustments to ensure workers with disabilities, such as physical or mental health conditions, aren't substantially disadvantaged when doing their jobs. See improve access and use of facilities for disabled employees and managing and 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶing employees with mental ill health.
Absenteeism
Promoting staff wellbeing and healthier lifestyles can also help reduce staff absences due to sickness. Employers should address this by asking workers if there is anything they can do to 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ them, so they are happier in the workplace and absences are minimised.
Caring responsibilities
Older workers often have caring responsibilities, eg, for elderly parents. This can cause stress and worry about the health and wellbeing of a close relative. The worker may also need to take time off work to help care for a relative, eg, to take an elderly parent to a hospital appointment. Employees with elder care responsibilities should be offered the same flexibility as those with childcare responsibilities.
Retirement age
The statutory default retirement age has been abolished, so most people can now work for as long as they want to. If an employee chooses to work longer, they can't be discriminated against unlawfully on the grounds of age. Employers should 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ staff with planning their future career development goals and the transition from employment to retirement when an employee decides to retire. See training your staff and providing 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ for a retiring employee.
Older women and the menopause
Health issues affect all workers, but some can be overlooked by employers. While many women may go through menopause with relatively little discomfort, many others report a range of symptoms such as hot flushes, irritability, sleep disturbances, fatigue, depression, impaired memory, and anxiety. Menopause awareness amongst managers and the option of flexible working may help female staff. See menopause in the workplace: employer guidance.

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Recruiting older workers

How employers can recruit fairly and avoid age discrimination when taking on new staff including older workers.

You must not discriminate on the grounds of age when recruiting new staff. The Employment Equality (Age) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2006 prohibit all employers, regardless of size, from subjecting job applicants and employees, including contract workers and former employees, to age discrimination and harassment. See more on age discrimination.
Age-neutral job adverts
You should use age-neutral language when advertising for job roles. References such as 'young', 'energetic', or 'recently qualified' are best avoided as this would discriminate against older workers. You could also consider using a strapline in job adverts to welcome all-age applicants, ensuring your organisation overcomes any unconscious bias or discrimination by tracking age profiles of successful candidates and potentially offering apprenticeships for older workers as well as the young.
During recruitment, you should evaluate candidates according to values, behaviours, competencies demonstrated, and their ability to do the job. See advertising a job and interviewing candidates.
Experience
Requirements when it comes to experience should be described in terms of type or depth of experience rather than a simple number of years of experience.
Qualifications
Applicants should only be asked for qualifications that are necessary for a job role. Looking for graduates might not be necessary for a particular role and may discriminate against older workers.
Interviewing
Avoid unscripted interviews, as this can often lead to discrimination when panel members ask inappropriate questions. You should ask the same questions to all candidates to ensure a fair, even, and unbiased interview process. Prepare the questions in advance and identify points that you would like candidates to address when answering their interview questions.
Promote your age-positive workplace
You can also promote your business as an age-positive employer. You could highlight the diverse age range in your workforce by featuring various members of staff through your company website or social media channels. Staff could share messages on why they enjoy working for you, and if there is any specific workplace 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ that you provide for them.

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Retain and retrain older workers

How employers can make efforts to retain staff to secure key skills and experience and how retraining older workers may be beneficial.
As an employer, you should take action to create a working environment that enables workers to develop and fulfil their potential and encourages them to stay. Recruiting and training new staff can be costly. Also, valuable skills and experience may be lost when an employee leaves, so you should make every effort to retain staff.
Retain and transfer key skills
You should plan effectively for an ageing workforce. Consider carrying out an age and skills audit to ensure you are making the most of staff knowledge and skills. This planning will help you identify your skills needs when there are future staff changes.
You should focus on how you facilitate the transfer of knowledge to younger staff, for example, through mentoring or getting older workers involved in planning and leading training and development programmes.
Retain existing workers
By providing workplace flexibility, you are considering the needs of all your workers.
Employers should consider the introduction of age-friendly workplace policies in areas that affect older workers, such as:
Flexible working
This can help to accommodate caring responsibilities, health considerations or changing the nature of a job role to lessen its physical demands. See flexible working: the law and best practice.
Phased retirement
See retirement ages and procedures.
Family care leave
See parental leave and time off for dependants.
Career gap breaks
Offer career breaks for staff so that they can deal with family responsibilities or pursue other interests with the security of returning to their job after a certain period of time.
Health and wellbeing
You could look at ways in which you promote healthy ageing in the workplace. For example, you could introduce fitness programmes at lunchtime or awareness sessions around healthy eating. See staff health and wellbeing.
Financial and retirement planning 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ
Employers can offer older staff the opportunity to understand their financial requirements for retirement. The age friendly training service from Age NI offers an opportunity for individuals aged 50+ to reflect and take a look at interrelated areas of their lives and provide an overview of three key areas:
financial wellbeing
health and wellbeing
career 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ
Employers can request group sessions to be delivered for their staff.
Alumni programmes
Rather than lose contact with workers when they leave your employment, you could look at creating an alumni programme that enables you to get insight into your business's successes and failures. You can also turn former employees into engaged brand ambassadors who can help promote your business as an ideal place to work.
Staff training and retraining
Retraining existing staff can be a cost-effective way of developing your existing talent pool and accessing new skills that your business requires. Staff retraining can also help reduce staff turnover as workers undergoing training will feel more valued, confident and motivated to do their job.
Age must not be a barrier to training opportunities - no one is ever too old to learn new skills. Older workers tend to be loyal and are less likely to change jobs frequently, so your business is likely to see the benefits of investing in training before the employee retires.
It is best practice for employers to discuss with their employees, regardless of age, their future aims and goals. This will help plan training and development needs. You should document any personal development discussion, hold the record for as long as there is a business need and provide a copy to the employee. See training your staff.
Age-Friendly Employer Pledge
As an employer, you can show you recognise the importance and value of older workers by committing to the Age-Friendly Employer Pledge. This initiative, run by the Centre for Ageing Better, outlines your commitment to promoting an age-friendly workplace through a number of actions.
Read further details on the Age-Friendly Employer Pledge.
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Five top tips to promote an age-diverse workforce

How employers can create a workplace that is inclusive to workers of all ages to give them a competitive advantage in recruitment and retention.
Research shows that businesses that promote an age-diverse workplace can benefit in many ways. Age diversity improves performance and productivity, reduces employee turnover, helps to drive innovation, and promotes stability.
Tips to create an age-inclusive workplace
We have outlined five top tips to help you create a workplace environment and culture where workers of all ages can feel welcomed, valued, and 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶed. These tips are especially helpful for older workers who may feel underrepresented and sometimes overlooked in the workplace.
1. Recruit from all age ranges
Develop an age-inclusive recruitment strategy to attract job applicants from all age ranges. To encourage older workers to apply for job vacancies, consider the language in your job descriptions and advertisements to avoid age bias. If you are an age-inclusive employer, promote this as part of your recruitment drive. Advertise your job vacancies across various media and digital channels to reach applicants from a diverse range of ages.
Examine the benefits package your organisation offers to attract job applicants and look at ways in which you could attract older workers, eg, offering flexible or part-time work. You should also take steps to ensure that staff are aware of how best to reduce bias and avoid discrimination throughout the recruitment process. See recruiting older workers.
2. Develop workplace policies promoting age-inclusiveness
Assess your current workplace policies on whether they help to promote age-inclusiveness. Adapt and enhance those existing policies where required. Identify gaps and determine if there are new policies that you could introduce to combat age discrimination and promote age-inclusiveness in your workplace.
Communicate and promote age-inclusiveness as part of your equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) strategy to make sure your staff and potential recruits are aware of the steps you are taking as an organisation to welcome people of all ages.
3. Identify and offer 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ on issues specific to older workers
Consider and offer help on issues that are specific to older workers, such as:
health, eg, menopause or reduced mobility;
finance, eg, pensions and planning for retirement;
caring responsibilities, eg, responsibility for an elderly parent or relative.
The best way to understand the issues facing your workers is to ask them. Create a staff forum or working group and get employees involved from a diverse range of ages in identifying and providing solutions to key challenges.
There are several organisations that provide guidance and advice to older people - you could provide signposts to this information, perhaps through a dedicated organisational intranet page.
4. Create an environment for shared learning
Older workers usually have a wealth of knowledge and experience. Provide an environment and culture that encourages knowledge and learning exchanges between workers in your organisation of different ages and varying levels of experience. This will ensure that vital knowledge and experience are not lost when older workers retire, but are transferred to younger and newer staff.
Provide opportunities for older and younger workers to interact and mix, eg, by building mixed-age teams and hosting age-inclusive social events. See training methods to fit your business.
5. Offer training and development opportunities that appeal to workers of all ages
Provide training and development opportunities that are attractive and open to workers of all ages. Consider that older workers may want to retrain on new technologies and processes that have been introduced into your organisation. Ensure that any development opportunities don't have any barriers that would prevent older workers from applying. See training your staff.
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Recruiting older workers

bgraham — Fri, 28 Jun 2019 11:26:27 +0000

Recruiting older workers bgraham Fri, 28/06/2019 - 12:26

Employing and 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶing older workers

In this guide:

Employment rights of older workers

How employers can meet the legal rights of older workers including retirement age, age discrimination, and caring for dependants including grandchildren and parents.
Employers should fully understand employment rights and the role of equal opportunities, practices, and procedures relating to older workers.
Recent years have seen the introduction of various policy reforms to encourage the participation and retention of older workers in employment.
How to prevent workplace age discrimination
It is generally unlawful for an employer to discriminate on the grounds of age - ie, to treat individuals of any age less favourably than others on the grounds of age.
Recruitment
To avoid age discrimination, you should check that your recruitment process is non-discriminatory. For example, aim to place advertisements in publications read by a range of age groups. Also, avoid using terms that imply a particular age group, such as 'mature', 'enthusiastic', 'highly experienced', or 'recent graduate'. See avoid discrimination when recruiting staff.
Redundancies
If you are making employees redundant, you should similarly ensure that you base procedures on business needs rather than age. For example, it could be discriminatory to select employees for redundancy solely based on when they joined your business - 'last in, first out'. See redundancy and lay-offs.
When age discrimination may be lawful
There are limited circumstances when age discrimination can be lawful. To read about age discrimination exceptions and examples, see age discrimination.
Develop age-related work policies
Age discrimination can affect workers of any age. Having an equal opportunities policy that explicitly mentions age could indicate your commitment to the fair treatment of and eliminating discrimination against workers of all ages. See equality and diversity workplace policies.
Training
You should also ensure appropriate training is provided to your managers and staff on workplace discrimination, with some focus on age discrimination. This will help to increase awareness of age discrimination and how to minimise it in the workplace.
Understand the rules for retirement
The statutory default retirement age in the UK was abolished in 2011. As a result, if an employer forces an employee to retire once they reach a certain age, that act would be direct age discrimination and is likely to be unlawful unless it can be objectively justified. See retirement ages and procedures.
An employee can retire voluntarily at a time that they choose and beyond their state pension age unless the job has a lawfully justified 'compulsory retirement age'. The reasons for compulsory retirement may include exceptional circumstances such as:
the job requires certain physical abilities (eg, in the construction industry)
the job has an age limit set by law (eg, commercial pilots)
Employers who set compulsory retirement age rules, also known as Employer Justified Retirement Ages (EJRA), must consider whether that retirement age can be objectively justified, for example, in terms of workforce planning, or the health and safety of individual employees, their colleagues, and the public. In addition, an employer will need to demonstrate that the compulsory retirement age is objectively justified; ie, that it is a proportionate means of achieving that objective.
See the Equality Commission's guide for employers on age discrimination in Northern Ireland (PDF, 1.53MB).
Provide flexible working arrangements
Older workers may prefer flexible working arrangements.
Every employee has the statutory right to request flexible working for any reason after 26 weeks of employment. Employees can make one flexible working application every 12 months. A year runs from the date the most recent application was made. If you accept an employee's flexible working request, this will be a permanent change to their contractual terms and conditions unless you agree otherwise.
There are different forms of flexible working, for example, homeworking, temporary contracts, part-time, flexitime, or job sharing. Employers should ensure the equal promotion of flexible working to staff of all ages. Develop clear procedures and criteria for how to apply for flexible working. See flexible working: the law and best practice.
Caring for grandchildren and dependants: rights at work
Apart from the right to request flexible working arrangements, outlined above, under employment law in Northern Ireland grandparents, generally, have no other statutory rights to paid or unpaid time off to care for their grandchildren.
Grandparents may have the right to parental leave in limited circumstances if they have adopted the child or have a residence order made in their favour giving them parental responsibility. Employees must have one year's employment service, and parental leave can be taken up until the child's 18th birthday. See parental leave entitlement.
All employees have the right to reasonable time off for dependants to deal with emergencies or unforeseen matters involving someone who depends on them for caring responsibilities. This could be to deal with a breakdown in childcare or if a child falls ill. It could also be used to deal with caring responsibilities for older relatives or parents who may be ill. Employers do not have to pay for this time off, but some employers may under the terms and conditions of employment. See time off to deal with emergencies involving dependants.
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Advantages of employing and retaining older workers

Key benefits that employing and retaining older workers can bring to businesses.
There is a wide range of advantages that employing older workers can bring to your business, especially when you have a mix of different ages across your workforce.
Age-diversity benefits
Age diversity can bring many benefits to your business. Employers can reap the benefits of experience and loyalty that older workers can bring. There may also be broader advantages for others within the workplace.
Working in an age-diverse team brings benefits, including fresh perspectives, knowledge-sharing, and improved problem-solving. Where there is an age-diverse workforce, businesses have seen advantages including:
increased productivity
skills diversity
better inclusiveness
opportunities for mentorships
improved staff retention
Benefits of employing older workers
Employing older workers can bring the following advantages to your business:
Experience and knowledge
Older workers bring life experience as well as accumulated knowledge from many years of working. You can tap into these strengths to help overcome workplace challenges and identify business opportunities.
New ideas and opportunities
If you are developing new ideas or searching for new business opportunities, an age-diverse workforce can prove helpful in weighing up the potential risks and benefits. Such foresight can help suggest new ideas or efficient ways of doing things.
Focused workers
Older workers are likely to analyse business tasks from a measured or calculated point of view rather than from an emotional one. This, in turn, can lead to fewer mistakes.
Problem-solving
Older workers with their experience, maturity, and often calming influence can help solve problems that may arise in the workplace, whether they are difficult business decisions or workplace conflict.
Positive role models
Older workers can be a positive influence on younger or less experienced workers. They often perform well in training or mentoring roles.
Resilience
Older workers are likely to have experienced difficult times throughout their working life, and so are often resilient when faced with a business challenge.
Commitment
On average, older workers report higher job satisfaction and are less likely to switch jobs. A reduction in staff turnover can create stability in the workforce and is more cost-effective than recruiting and retraining new staff. See control staff turnover.
Adaptability
Older workers are likely to have experienced frequent changes during their working careers, so they often adapt well to the need for new skills and changing technology.
Responsibility
Older workers are inclined to take on roles that require a level of responsibility, such as management positions, and are often willing to accept accountability if things go wrong.
Customer service
Older workers usually place value on customer service, which can help you similarly maintain a focus on providing quality service.
Consider the challenges too
Despite the many advantages, there are some possible challenges for employers managing older workers, as with staff of any age. See ageing workforce: challenges for staff and employers.
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Ageing workforce: challenges for staff and employers

How employers can identify and address the challenges of an ageing workforce.

The steps for effectively managing older workers are the same as for staff of any age. However, there are some issues that affect older workers in particular. It is important to understand the challenges that older employees might face and take steps to 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ them.
Challenges for older workers
Challenges for older workers can include:
Age discrimination
There are often stereotypes of older workers being less agile, technophobic, more prone to sickness absence, and resistant to change. Read how to avoid age discrimination.
Part-time or flexible working requirements
Part-time work and the demand for flexible working are more common among older workers than among younger age groups. Ensure the equal promotion of flexible working to all staff. Develop clear procedures and criteria for how to apply for flexible working.
See flexible working for over 50s - a toolkit for employers (PDF, 3.63MB).
Physical or mental challenges of job roles
Employers must make reasonable adjustments to ensure workers with disabilities, such as physical or mental health conditions, aren't substantially disadvantaged when doing their jobs. See improve access and use of facilities for disabled employees and managing and 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶing employees with mental ill health.
Absenteeism
Promoting staff wellbeing and healthier lifestyles can also help reduce staff absences due to sickness. Employers should address this by asking workers if there is anything they can do to 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ them, so they are happier in the workplace and absences are minimised.
Caring responsibilities
Older workers often have caring responsibilities, eg, for elderly parents. This can cause stress and worry about the health and wellbeing of a close relative. The worker may also need to take time off work to help care for a relative, eg, to take an elderly parent to a hospital appointment. Employees with elder care responsibilities should be offered the same flexibility as those with childcare responsibilities.
Retirement age
The statutory default retirement age has been abolished, so most people can now work for as long as they want to. If an employee chooses to work longer, they can't be discriminated against unlawfully on the grounds of age. Employers should 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ staff with planning their future career development goals and the transition from employment to retirement when an employee decides to retire. See training your staff and providing 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ for a retiring employee.
Older women and the menopause
Health issues affect all workers, but some can be overlooked by employers. While many women may go through menopause with relatively little discomfort, many others report a range of symptoms such as hot flushes, irritability, sleep disturbances, fatigue, depression, impaired memory, and anxiety. Menopause awareness amongst managers and the option of flexible working may help female staff. See menopause in the workplace: employer guidance.

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Recruiting older workers

How employers can recruit fairly and avoid age discrimination when taking on new staff including older workers.

You must not discriminate on the grounds of age when recruiting new staff. The Employment Equality (Age) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2006 prohibit all employers, regardless of size, from subjecting job applicants and employees, including contract workers and former employees, to age discrimination and harassment. See more on age discrimination.
Age-neutral job adverts
You should use age-neutral language when advertising for job roles. References such as 'young', 'energetic', or 'recently qualified' are best avoided as this would discriminate against older workers. You could also consider using a strapline in job adverts to welcome all-age applicants, ensuring your organisation overcomes any unconscious bias or discrimination by tracking age profiles of successful candidates and potentially offering apprenticeships for older workers as well as the young.
During recruitment, you should evaluate candidates according to values, behaviours, competencies demonstrated, and their ability to do the job. See advertising a job and interviewing candidates.
Experience
Requirements when it comes to experience should be described in terms of type or depth of experience rather than a simple number of years of experience.
Qualifications
Applicants should only be asked for qualifications that are necessary for a job role. Looking for graduates might not be necessary for a particular role and may discriminate against older workers.
Interviewing
Avoid unscripted interviews, as this can often lead to discrimination when panel members ask inappropriate questions. You should ask the same questions to all candidates to ensure a fair, even, and unbiased interview process. Prepare the questions in advance and identify points that you would like candidates to address when answering their interview questions.
Promote your age-positive workplace
You can also promote your business as an age-positive employer. You could highlight the diverse age range in your workforce by featuring various members of staff through your company website or social media channels. Staff could share messages on why they enjoy working for you, and if there is any specific workplace 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ that you provide for them.

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Retain and retrain older workers

How employers can make efforts to retain staff to secure key skills and experience and how retraining older workers may be beneficial.
As an employer, you should take action to create a working environment that enables workers to develop and fulfil their potential and encourages them to stay. Recruiting and training new staff can be costly. Also, valuable skills and experience may be lost when an employee leaves, so you should make every effort to retain staff.
Retain and transfer key skills
You should plan effectively for an ageing workforce. Consider carrying out an age and skills audit to ensure you are making the most of staff knowledge and skills. This planning will help you identify your skills needs when there are future staff changes.
You should focus on how you facilitate the transfer of knowledge to younger staff, for example, through mentoring or getting older workers involved in planning and leading training and development programmes.
Retain existing workers
By providing workplace flexibility, you are considering the needs of all your workers.
Employers should consider the introduction of age-friendly workplace policies in areas that affect older workers, such as:
Flexible working
This can help to accommodate caring responsibilities, health considerations or changing the nature of a job role to lessen its physical demands. See flexible working: the law and best practice.
Phased retirement
See retirement ages and procedures.
Family care leave
See parental leave and time off for dependants.
Career gap breaks
Offer career breaks for staff so that they can deal with family responsibilities or pursue other interests with the security of returning to their job after a certain period of time.
Health and wellbeing
You could look at ways in which you promote healthy ageing in the workplace. For example, you could introduce fitness programmes at lunchtime or awareness sessions around healthy eating. See staff health and wellbeing.
Financial and retirement planning 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ
Employers can offer older staff the opportunity to understand their financial requirements for retirement. The age friendly training service from Age NI offers an opportunity for individuals aged 50+ to reflect and take a look at interrelated areas of their lives and provide an overview of three key areas:
financial wellbeing
health and wellbeing
career 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ
Employers can request group sessions to be delivered for their staff.
Alumni programmes
Rather than lose contact with workers when they leave your employment, you could look at creating an alumni programme that enables you to get insight into your business's successes and failures. You can also turn former employees into engaged brand ambassadors who can help promote your business as an ideal place to work.
Staff training and retraining
Retraining existing staff can be a cost-effective way of developing your existing talent pool and accessing new skills that your business requires. Staff retraining can also help reduce staff turnover as workers undergoing training will feel more valued, confident and motivated to do their job.
Age must not be a barrier to training opportunities - no one is ever too old to learn new skills. Older workers tend to be loyal and are less likely to change jobs frequently, so your business is likely to see the benefits of investing in training before the employee retires.
It is best practice for employers to discuss with their employees, regardless of age, their future aims and goals. This will help plan training and development needs. You should document any personal development discussion, hold the record for as long as there is a business need and provide a copy to the employee. See training your staff.
Age-Friendly Employer Pledge
As an employer, you can show you recognise the importance and value of older workers by committing to the Age-Friendly Employer Pledge. This initiative, run by the Centre for Ageing Better, outlines your commitment to promoting an age-friendly workplace through a number of actions.
Read further details on the Age-Friendly Employer Pledge.
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Five top tips to promote an age-diverse workforce

How employers can create a workplace that is inclusive to workers of all ages to give them a competitive advantage in recruitment and retention.
Research shows that businesses that promote an age-diverse workplace can benefit in many ways. Age diversity improves performance and productivity, reduces employee turnover, helps to drive innovation, and promotes stability.
Tips to create an age-inclusive workplace
We have outlined five top tips to help you create a workplace environment and culture where workers of all ages can feel welcomed, valued, and 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶed. These tips are especially helpful for older workers who may feel underrepresented and sometimes overlooked in the workplace.
1. Recruit from all age ranges
Develop an age-inclusive recruitment strategy to attract job applicants from all age ranges. To encourage older workers to apply for job vacancies, consider the language in your job descriptions and advertisements to avoid age bias. If you are an age-inclusive employer, promote this as part of your recruitment drive. Advertise your job vacancies across various media and digital channels to reach applicants from a diverse range of ages.
Examine the benefits package your organisation offers to attract job applicants and look at ways in which you could attract older workers, eg, offering flexible or part-time work. You should also take steps to ensure that staff are aware of how best to reduce bias and avoid discrimination throughout the recruitment process. See recruiting older workers.
2. Develop workplace policies promoting age-inclusiveness
Assess your current workplace policies on whether they help to promote age-inclusiveness. Adapt and enhance those existing policies where required. Identify gaps and determine if there are new policies that you could introduce to combat age discrimination and promote age-inclusiveness in your workplace.
Communicate and promote age-inclusiveness as part of your equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) strategy to make sure your staff and potential recruits are aware of the steps you are taking as an organisation to welcome people of all ages.
3. Identify and offer 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ on issues specific to older workers
Consider and offer help on issues that are specific to older workers, such as:
health, eg, menopause or reduced mobility;
finance, eg, pensions and planning for retirement;
caring responsibilities, eg, responsibility for an elderly parent or relative.
The best way to understand the issues facing your workers is to ask them. Create a staff forum or working group and get employees involved from a diverse range of ages in identifying and providing solutions to key challenges.
There are several organisations that provide guidance and advice to older people - you could provide signposts to this information, perhaps through a dedicated organisational intranet page.
4. Create an environment for shared learning
Older workers usually have a wealth of knowledge and experience. Provide an environment and culture that encourages knowledge and learning exchanges between workers in your organisation of different ages and varying levels of experience. This will ensure that vital knowledge and experience are not lost when older workers retire, but are transferred to younger and newer staff.
Provide opportunities for older and younger workers to interact and mix, eg, by building mixed-age teams and hosting age-inclusive social events. See training methods to fit your business.
5. Offer training and development opportunities that appeal to workers of all ages
Provide training and development opportunities that are attractive and open to workers of all ages. Consider that older workers may want to retrain on new technologies and processes that have been introduced into your organisation. Ensure that any development opportunities don't have any barriers that would prevent older workers from applying. See training your staff.
Actions

Age-Inclusive Business Review

Age friendly training | Age NI

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Implement an equality plan

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Ageing workforce: challenges for staff and employers

bgraham — Fri, 28 Jun 2019 11:20:16 +0000

Ageing workforce: challenges for staff and employers bgraham Fri, 28/06/2019 - 12:20

Employing and 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶing older workers

In this guide:

Employment rights of older workers

How employers can meet the legal rights of older workers including retirement age, age discrimination, and caring for dependants including grandchildren and parents.
Employers should fully understand employment rights and the role of equal opportunities, practices, and procedures relating to older workers.
Recent years have seen the introduction of various policy reforms to encourage the participation and retention of older workers in employment.
How to prevent workplace age discrimination
It is generally unlawful for an employer to discriminate on the grounds of age - ie, to treat individuals of any age less favourably than others on the grounds of age.
Recruitment
To avoid age discrimination, you should check that your recruitment process is non-discriminatory. For example, aim to place advertisements in publications read by a range of age groups. Also, avoid using terms that imply a particular age group, such as 'mature', 'enthusiastic', 'highly experienced', or 'recent graduate'. See avoid discrimination when recruiting staff.
Redundancies
If you are making employees redundant, you should similarly ensure that you base procedures on business needs rather than age. For example, it could be discriminatory to select employees for redundancy solely based on when they joined your business - 'last in, first out'. See redundancy and lay-offs.
When age discrimination may be lawful
There are limited circumstances when age discrimination can be lawful. To read about age discrimination exceptions and examples, see age discrimination.
Develop age-related work policies
Age discrimination can affect workers of any age. Having an equal opportunities policy that explicitly mentions age could indicate your commitment to the fair treatment of and eliminating discrimination against workers of all ages. See equality and diversity workplace policies.
Training
You should also ensure appropriate training is provided to your managers and staff on workplace discrimination, with some focus on age discrimination. This will help to increase awareness of age discrimination and how to minimise it in the workplace.
Understand the rules for retirement
The statutory default retirement age in the UK was abolished in 2011. As a result, if an employer forces an employee to retire once they reach a certain age, that act would be direct age discrimination and is likely to be unlawful unless it can be objectively justified. See retirement ages and procedures.
An employee can retire voluntarily at a time that they choose and beyond their state pension age unless the job has a lawfully justified 'compulsory retirement age'. The reasons for compulsory retirement may include exceptional circumstances such as:
the job requires certain physical abilities (eg, in the construction industry)
the job has an age limit set by law (eg, commercial pilots)
Employers who set compulsory retirement age rules, also known as Employer Justified Retirement Ages (EJRA), must consider whether that retirement age can be objectively justified, for example, in terms of workforce planning, or the health and safety of individual employees, their colleagues, and the public. In addition, an employer will need to demonstrate that the compulsory retirement age is objectively justified; ie, that it is a proportionate means of achieving that objective.
See the Equality Commission's guide for employers on age discrimination in Northern Ireland (PDF, 1.53MB).
Provide flexible working arrangements
Older workers may prefer flexible working arrangements.
Every employee has the statutory right to request flexible working for any reason after 26 weeks of employment. Employees can make one flexible working application every 12 months. A year runs from the date the most recent application was made. If you accept an employee's flexible working request, this will be a permanent change to their contractual terms and conditions unless you agree otherwise.
There are different forms of flexible working, for example, homeworking, temporary contracts, part-time, flexitime, or job sharing. Employers should ensure the equal promotion of flexible working to staff of all ages. Develop clear procedures and criteria for how to apply for flexible working. See flexible working: the law and best practice.
Caring for grandchildren and dependants: rights at work
Apart from the right to request flexible working arrangements, outlined above, under employment law in Northern Ireland grandparents, generally, have no other statutory rights to paid or unpaid time off to care for their grandchildren.
Grandparents may have the right to parental leave in limited circumstances if they have adopted the child or have a residence order made in their favour giving them parental responsibility. Employees must have one year's employment service, and parental leave can be taken up until the child's 18th birthday. See parental leave entitlement.
All employees have the right to reasonable time off for dependants to deal with emergencies or unforeseen matters involving someone who depends on them for caring responsibilities. This could be to deal with a breakdown in childcare or if a child falls ill. It could also be used to deal with caring responsibilities for older relatives or parents who may be ill. Employers do not have to pay for this time off, but some employers may under the terms and conditions of employment. See time off to deal with emergencies involving dependants.
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Actions

Age-Friendly Employer Pledge

Age-Inclusive Business Review

Age friendly training | Age NI

Equality of opportunity in employment | Equality Commission guidance

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Age discrimination

Retirement ages and procedures

Staff training

Parental leave and time off for dependants

Flexible working: the law and best practice

Content category

Employment and skills
Source URL
/content/employment-rights-older-workers

Links
Advantages of employing and retaining older workers

Key benefits that employing and retaining older workers can bring to businesses.
There is a wide range of advantages that employing older workers can bring to your business, especially when you have a mix of different ages across your workforce.
Age-diversity benefits
Age diversity can bring many benefits to your business. Employers can reap the benefits of experience and loyalty that older workers can bring. There may also be broader advantages for others within the workplace.
Working in an age-diverse team brings benefits, including fresh perspectives, knowledge-sharing, and improved problem-solving. Where there is an age-diverse workforce, businesses have seen advantages including:
increased productivity
skills diversity
better inclusiveness
opportunities for mentorships
improved staff retention
Benefits of employing older workers
Employing older workers can bring the following advantages to your business:
Experience and knowledge
Older workers bring life experience as well as accumulated knowledge from many years of working. You can tap into these strengths to help overcome workplace challenges and identify business opportunities.
New ideas and opportunities
If you are developing new ideas or searching for new business opportunities, an age-diverse workforce can prove helpful in weighing up the potential risks and benefits. Such foresight can help suggest new ideas or efficient ways of doing things.
Focused workers
Older workers are likely to analyse business tasks from a measured or calculated point of view rather than from an emotional one. This, in turn, can lead to fewer mistakes.
Problem-solving
Older workers with their experience, maturity, and often calming influence can help solve problems that may arise in the workplace, whether they are difficult business decisions or workplace conflict.
Positive role models
Older workers can be a positive influence on younger or less experienced workers. They often perform well in training or mentoring roles.
Resilience
Older workers are likely to have experienced difficult times throughout their working life, and so are often resilient when faced with a business challenge.
Commitment
On average, older workers report higher job satisfaction and are less likely to switch jobs. A reduction in staff turnover can create stability in the workforce and is more cost-effective than recruiting and retraining new staff. See control staff turnover.
Adaptability
Older workers are likely to have experienced frequent changes during their working careers, so they often adapt well to the need for new skills and changing technology.
Responsibility
Older workers are inclined to take on roles that require a level of responsibility, such as management positions, and are often willing to accept accountability if things go wrong.
Customer service
Older workers usually place value on customer service, which can help you similarly maintain a focus on providing quality service.
Consider the challenges too
Despite the many advantages, there are some possible challenges for employers managing older workers, as with staff of any age. See ageing workforce: challenges for staff and employers.
Developed with

The Equality Commission

Actions

Age discrimination in Northern Ireland - a guide for employers (PDF, 1.53MB)

Age-Friendly Employer Pledge

Age-Inclusive Business Review

Age friendly training | Age NI

Also on this site

Age discrimination

Staff training

Control staff turnover

Manage staff performance

Content category

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Source URL
/content/advantages-employing-and-retaining-older-workers

Links
Ageing workforce: challenges for staff and employers

How employers can identify and address the challenges of an ageing workforce.

The steps for effectively managing older workers are the same as for staff of any age. However, there are some issues that affect older workers in particular. It is important to understand the challenges that older employees might face and take steps to 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ them.
Challenges for older workers
Challenges for older workers can include:
Age discrimination
There are often stereotypes of older workers being less agile, technophobic, more prone to sickness absence, and resistant to change. Read how to avoid age discrimination.
Part-time or flexible working requirements
Part-time work and the demand for flexible working are more common among older workers than among younger age groups. Ensure the equal promotion of flexible working to all staff. Develop clear procedures and criteria for how to apply for flexible working.
See flexible working for over 50s - a toolkit for employers (PDF, 3.63MB).
Physical or mental challenges of job roles
Employers must make reasonable adjustments to ensure workers with disabilities, such as physical or mental health conditions, aren't substantially disadvantaged when doing their jobs. See improve access and use of facilities for disabled employees and managing and 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶing employees with mental ill health.
Absenteeism
Promoting staff wellbeing and healthier lifestyles can also help reduce staff absences due to sickness. Employers should address this by asking workers if there is anything they can do to 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ them, so they are happier in the workplace and absences are minimised.
Caring responsibilities
Older workers often have caring responsibilities, eg, for elderly parents. This can cause stress and worry about the health and wellbeing of a close relative. The worker may also need to take time off work to help care for a relative, eg, to take an elderly parent to a hospital appointment. Employees with elder care responsibilities should be offered the same flexibility as those with childcare responsibilities.
Retirement age
The statutory default retirement age has been abolished, so most people can now work for as long as they want to. If an employee chooses to work longer, they can't be discriminated against unlawfully on the grounds of age. Employers should 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ staff with planning their future career development goals and the transition from employment to retirement when an employee decides to retire. See training your staff and providing 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ for a retiring employee.
Older women and the menopause
Health issues affect all workers, but some can be overlooked by employers. While many women may go through menopause with relatively little discomfort, many others report a range of symptoms such as hot flushes, irritability, sleep disturbances, fatigue, depression, impaired memory, and anxiety. Menopause awareness amongst managers and the option of flexible working may help female staff. See menopause in the workplace: employer guidance.

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Recruiting older workers

How employers can recruit fairly and avoid age discrimination when taking on new staff including older workers.

You must not discriminate on the grounds of age when recruiting new staff. The Employment Equality (Age) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2006 prohibit all employers, regardless of size, from subjecting job applicants and employees, including contract workers and former employees, to age discrimination and harassment. See more on age discrimination.
Age-neutral job adverts
You should use age-neutral language when advertising for job roles. References such as 'young', 'energetic', or 'recently qualified' are best avoided as this would discriminate against older workers. You could also consider using a strapline in job adverts to welcome all-age applicants, ensuring your organisation overcomes any unconscious bias or discrimination by tracking age profiles of successful candidates and potentially offering apprenticeships for older workers as well as the young.
During recruitment, you should evaluate candidates according to values, behaviours, competencies demonstrated, and their ability to do the job. See advertising a job and interviewing candidates.
Experience
Requirements when it comes to experience should be described in terms of type or depth of experience rather than a simple number of years of experience.
Qualifications
Applicants should only be asked for qualifications that are necessary for a job role. Looking for graduates might not be necessary for a particular role and may discriminate against older workers.
Interviewing
Avoid unscripted interviews, as this can often lead to discrimination when panel members ask inappropriate questions. You should ask the same questions to all candidates to ensure a fair, even, and unbiased interview process. Prepare the questions in advance and identify points that you would like candidates to address when answering their interview questions.
Promote your age-positive workplace
You can also promote your business as an age-positive employer. You could highlight the diverse age range in your workforce by featuring various members of staff through your company website or social media channels. Staff could share messages on why they enjoy working for you, and if there is any specific workplace 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ that you provide for them.

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Age discrimination in Northern Ireland - a guide for employers (PDF, 1.53MB)

Age-Friendly Employer Pledge

Age-Inclusive Business Review

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Retain and retrain older workers

How employers can make efforts to retain staff to secure key skills and experience and how retraining older workers may be beneficial.
As an employer, you should take action to create a working environment that enables workers to develop and fulfil their potential and encourages them to stay. Recruiting and training new staff can be costly. Also, valuable skills and experience may be lost when an employee leaves, so you should make every effort to retain staff.
Retain and transfer key skills
You should plan effectively for an ageing workforce. Consider carrying out an age and skills audit to ensure you are making the most of staff knowledge and skills. This planning will help you identify your skills needs when there are future staff changes.
You should focus on how you facilitate the transfer of knowledge to younger staff, for example, through mentoring or getting older workers involved in planning and leading training and development programmes.
Retain existing workers
By providing workplace flexibility, you are considering the needs of all your workers.
Employers should consider the introduction of age-friendly workplace policies in areas that affect older workers, such as:
Flexible working
This can help to accommodate caring responsibilities, health considerations or changing the nature of a job role to lessen its physical demands. See flexible working: the law and best practice.
Phased retirement
See retirement ages and procedures.
Family care leave
See parental leave and time off for dependants.
Career gap breaks
Offer career breaks for staff so that they can deal with family responsibilities or pursue other interests with the security of returning to their job after a certain period of time.
Health and wellbeing
You could look at ways in which you promote healthy ageing in the workplace. For example, you could introduce fitness programmes at lunchtime or awareness sessions around healthy eating. See staff health and wellbeing.
Financial and retirement planning 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ
Employers can offer older staff the opportunity to understand their financial requirements for retirement. The age friendly training service from Age NI offers an opportunity for individuals aged 50+ to reflect and take a look at interrelated areas of their lives and provide an overview of three key areas:
financial wellbeing
health and wellbeing
career 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ
Employers can request group sessions to be delivered for their staff.
Alumni programmes
Rather than lose contact with workers when they leave your employment, you could look at creating an alumni programme that enables you to get insight into your business's successes and failures. You can also turn former employees into engaged brand ambassadors who can help promote your business as an ideal place to work.
Staff training and retraining
Retraining existing staff can be a cost-effective way of developing your existing talent pool and accessing new skills that your business requires. Staff retraining can also help reduce staff turnover as workers undergoing training will feel more valued, confident and motivated to do their job.
Age must not be a barrier to training opportunities - no one is ever too old to learn new skills. Older workers tend to be loyal and are less likely to change jobs frequently, so your business is likely to see the benefits of investing in training before the employee retires.
It is best practice for employers to discuss with their employees, regardless of age, their future aims and goals. This will help plan training and development needs. You should document any personal development discussion, hold the record for as long as there is a business need and provide a copy to the employee. See training your staff.
Age-Friendly Employer Pledge
As an employer, you can show you recognise the importance and value of older workers by committing to the Age-Friendly Employer Pledge. This initiative, run by the Centre for Ageing Better, outlines your commitment to promoting an age-friendly workplace through a number of actions.
Read further details on the Age-Friendly Employer Pledge.
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Five top tips to promote an age-diverse workforce

How employers can create a workplace that is inclusive to workers of all ages to give them a competitive advantage in recruitment and retention.
Research shows that businesses that promote an age-diverse workplace can benefit in many ways. Age diversity improves performance and productivity, reduces employee turnover, helps to drive innovation, and promotes stability.
Tips to create an age-inclusive workplace
We have outlined five top tips to help you create a workplace environment and culture where workers of all ages can feel welcomed, valued, and 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶed. These tips are especially helpful for older workers who may feel underrepresented and sometimes overlooked in the workplace.
1. Recruit from all age ranges
Develop an age-inclusive recruitment strategy to attract job applicants from all age ranges. To encourage older workers to apply for job vacancies, consider the language in your job descriptions and advertisements to avoid age bias. If you are an age-inclusive employer, promote this as part of your recruitment drive. Advertise your job vacancies across various media and digital channels to reach applicants from a diverse range of ages.
Examine the benefits package your organisation offers to attract job applicants and look at ways in which you could attract older workers, eg, offering flexible or part-time work. You should also take steps to ensure that staff are aware of how best to reduce bias and avoid discrimination throughout the recruitment process. See recruiting older workers.
2. Develop workplace policies promoting age-inclusiveness
Assess your current workplace policies on whether they help to promote age-inclusiveness. Adapt and enhance those existing policies where required. Identify gaps and determine if there are new policies that you could introduce to combat age discrimination and promote age-inclusiveness in your workplace.
Communicate and promote age-inclusiveness as part of your equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) strategy to make sure your staff and potential recruits are aware of the steps you are taking as an organisation to welcome people of all ages.
3. Identify and offer 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ on issues specific to older workers
Consider and offer help on issues that are specific to older workers, such as:
health, eg, menopause or reduced mobility;
finance, eg, pensions and planning for retirement;
caring responsibilities, eg, responsibility for an elderly parent or relative.
The best way to understand the issues facing your workers is to ask them. Create a staff forum or working group and get employees involved from a diverse range of ages in identifying and providing solutions to key challenges.
There are several organisations that provide guidance and advice to older people - you could provide signposts to this information, perhaps through a dedicated organisational intranet page.
4. Create an environment for shared learning
Older workers usually have a wealth of knowledge and experience. Provide an environment and culture that encourages knowledge and learning exchanges between workers in your organisation of different ages and varying levels of experience. This will ensure that vital knowledge and experience are not lost when older workers retire, but are transferred to younger and newer staff.
Provide opportunities for older and younger workers to interact and mix, eg, by building mixed-age teams and hosting age-inclusive social events. See training methods to fit your business.
5. Offer training and development opportunities that appeal to workers of all ages
Provide training and development opportunities that are attractive and open to workers of all ages. Consider that older workers may want to retrain on new technologies and processes that have been introduced into your organisation. Ensure that any development opportunities don't have any barriers that would prevent older workers from applying. See training your staff.
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Advantages of employing and retaining older workers

bgraham — Fri, 28 Jun 2019 11:13:14 +0000

Advantages of employing and retaining older workers bgraham Fri, 28/06/2019 - 12:13

Employing and 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶing older workers

In this guide:

Employment rights of older workers

How employers can meet the legal rights of older workers including retirement age, age discrimination, and caring for dependants including grandchildren and parents.
Employers should fully understand employment rights and the role of equal opportunities, practices, and procedures relating to older workers.
Recent years have seen the introduction of various policy reforms to encourage the participation and retention of older workers in employment.
How to prevent workplace age discrimination
It is generally unlawful for an employer to discriminate on the grounds of age - ie, to treat individuals of any age less favourably than others on the grounds of age.
Recruitment
To avoid age discrimination, you should check that your recruitment process is non-discriminatory. For example, aim to place advertisements in publications read by a range of age groups. Also, avoid using terms that imply a particular age group, such as 'mature', 'enthusiastic', 'highly experienced', or 'recent graduate'. See avoid discrimination when recruiting staff.
Redundancies
If you are making employees redundant, you should similarly ensure that you base procedures on business needs rather than age. For example, it could be discriminatory to select employees for redundancy solely based on when they joined your business - 'last in, first out'. See redundancy and lay-offs.
When age discrimination may be lawful
There are limited circumstances when age discrimination can be lawful. To read about age discrimination exceptions and examples, see age discrimination.
Develop age-related work policies
Age discrimination can affect workers of any age. Having an equal opportunities policy that explicitly mentions age could indicate your commitment to the fair treatment of and eliminating discrimination against workers of all ages. See equality and diversity workplace policies.
Training
You should also ensure appropriate training is provided to your managers and staff on workplace discrimination, with some focus on age discrimination. This will help to increase awareness of age discrimination and how to minimise it in the workplace.
Understand the rules for retirement
The statutory default retirement age in the UK was abolished in 2011. As a result, if an employer forces an employee to retire once they reach a certain age, that act would be direct age discrimination and is likely to be unlawful unless it can be objectively justified. See retirement ages and procedures.
An employee can retire voluntarily at a time that they choose and beyond their state pension age unless the job has a lawfully justified 'compulsory retirement age'. The reasons for compulsory retirement may include exceptional circumstances such as:
the job requires certain physical abilities (eg, in the construction industry)
the job has an age limit set by law (eg, commercial pilots)
Employers who set compulsory retirement age rules, also known as Employer Justified Retirement Ages (EJRA), must consider whether that retirement age can be objectively justified, for example, in terms of workforce planning, or the health and safety of individual employees, their colleagues, and the public. In addition, an employer will need to demonstrate that the compulsory retirement age is objectively justified; ie, that it is a proportionate means of achieving that objective.
See the Equality Commission's guide for employers on age discrimination in Northern Ireland (PDF, 1.53MB).
Provide flexible working arrangements
Older workers may prefer flexible working arrangements.
Every employee has the statutory right to request flexible working for any reason after 26 weeks of employment. Employees can make one flexible working application every 12 months. A year runs from the date the most recent application was made. If you accept an employee's flexible working request, this will be a permanent change to their contractual terms and conditions unless you agree otherwise.
There are different forms of flexible working, for example, homeworking, temporary contracts, part-time, flexitime, or job sharing. Employers should ensure the equal promotion of flexible working to staff of all ages. Develop clear procedures and criteria for how to apply for flexible working. See flexible working: the law and best practice.
Caring for grandchildren and dependants: rights at work
Apart from the right to request flexible working arrangements, outlined above, under employment law in Northern Ireland grandparents, generally, have no other statutory rights to paid or unpaid time off to care for their grandchildren.
Grandparents may have the right to parental leave in limited circumstances if they have adopted the child or have a residence order made in their favour giving them parental responsibility. Employees must have one year's employment service, and parental leave can be taken up until the child's 18th birthday. See parental leave entitlement.
All employees have the right to reasonable time off for dependants to deal with emergencies or unforeseen matters involving someone who depends on them for caring responsibilities. This could be to deal with a breakdown in childcare or if a child falls ill. It could also be used to deal with caring responsibilities for older relatives or parents who may be ill. Employers do not have to pay for this time off, but some employers may under the terms and conditions of employment. See time off to deal with emergencies involving dependants.
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Advantages of employing and retaining older workers

Key benefits that employing and retaining older workers can bring to businesses.
There is a wide range of advantages that employing older workers can bring to your business, especially when you have a mix of different ages across your workforce.
Age-diversity benefits
Age diversity can bring many benefits to your business. Employers can reap the benefits of experience and loyalty that older workers can bring. There may also be broader advantages for others within the workplace.
Working in an age-diverse team brings benefits, including fresh perspectives, knowledge-sharing, and improved problem-solving. Where there is an age-diverse workforce, businesses have seen advantages including:
increased productivity
skills diversity
better inclusiveness
opportunities for mentorships
improved staff retention
Benefits of employing older workers
Employing older workers can bring the following advantages to your business:
Experience and knowledge
Older workers bring life experience as well as accumulated knowledge from many years of working. You can tap into these strengths to help overcome workplace challenges and identify business opportunities.
New ideas and opportunities
If you are developing new ideas or searching for new business opportunities, an age-diverse workforce can prove helpful in weighing up the potential risks and benefits. Such foresight can help suggest new ideas or efficient ways of doing things.
Focused workers
Older workers are likely to analyse business tasks from a measured or calculated point of view rather than from an emotional one. This, in turn, can lead to fewer mistakes.
Problem-solving
Older workers with their experience, maturity, and often calming influence can help solve problems that may arise in the workplace, whether they are difficult business decisions or workplace conflict.
Positive role models
Older workers can be a positive influence on younger or less experienced workers. They often perform well in training or mentoring roles.
Resilience
Older workers are likely to have experienced difficult times throughout their working life, and so are often resilient when faced with a business challenge.
Commitment
On average, older workers report higher job satisfaction and are less likely to switch jobs. A reduction in staff turnover can create stability in the workforce and is more cost-effective than recruiting and retraining new staff. See control staff turnover.
Adaptability
Older workers are likely to have experienced frequent changes during their working careers, so they often adapt well to the need for new skills and changing technology.
Responsibility
Older workers are inclined to take on roles that require a level of responsibility, such as management positions, and are often willing to accept accountability if things go wrong.
Customer service
Older workers usually place value on customer service, which can help you similarly maintain a focus on providing quality service.
Consider the challenges too
Despite the many advantages, there are some possible challenges for employers managing older workers, as with staff of any age. See ageing workforce: challenges for staff and employers.
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Age discrimination in Northern Ireland - a guide for employers (PDF, 1.53MB)

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Ageing workforce: challenges for staff and employers

How employers can identify and address the challenges of an ageing workforce.

The steps for effectively managing older workers are the same as for staff of any age. However, there are some issues that affect older workers in particular. It is important to understand the challenges that older employees might face and take steps to 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ them.
Challenges for older workers
Challenges for older workers can include:
Age discrimination
There are often stereotypes of older workers being less agile, technophobic, more prone to sickness absence, and resistant to change. Read how to avoid age discrimination.
Part-time or flexible working requirements
Part-time work and the demand for flexible working are more common among older workers than among younger age groups. Ensure the equal promotion of flexible working to all staff. Develop clear procedures and criteria for how to apply for flexible working.
See flexible working for over 50s - a toolkit for employers (PDF, 3.63MB).
Physical or mental challenges of job roles
Employers must make reasonable adjustments to ensure workers with disabilities, such as physical or mental health conditions, aren't substantially disadvantaged when doing their jobs. See improve access and use of facilities for disabled employees and managing and 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶing employees with mental ill health.
Absenteeism
Promoting staff wellbeing and healthier lifestyles can also help reduce staff absences due to sickness. Employers should address this by asking workers if there is anything they can do to 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ them, so they are happier in the workplace and absences are minimised.
Caring responsibilities
Older workers often have caring responsibilities, eg, for elderly parents. This can cause stress and worry about the health and wellbeing of a close relative. The worker may also need to take time off work to help care for a relative, eg, to take an elderly parent to a hospital appointment. Employees with elder care responsibilities should be offered the same flexibility as those with childcare responsibilities.
Retirement age
The statutory default retirement age has been abolished, so most people can now work for as long as they want to. If an employee chooses to work longer, they can't be discriminated against unlawfully on the grounds of age. Employers should 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ staff with planning their future career development goals and the transition from employment to retirement when an employee decides to retire. See training your staff and providing 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ for a retiring employee.
Older women and the menopause
Health issues affect all workers, but some can be overlooked by employers. While many women may go through menopause with relatively little discomfort, many others report a range of symptoms such as hot flushes, irritability, sleep disturbances, fatigue, depression, impaired memory, and anxiety. Menopause awareness amongst managers and the option of flexible working may help female staff. See menopause in the workplace: employer guidance.

Developed with

The Equality Commission

Actions

Promoting Equality in Employment for Women Affected by Menopause (PDF, 1.46MB)

Employer toolkit: guidance for managers of older workers (PDF, 315K)

Age discrimination in Northern Ireland - a guide for employers (PDF, 1.53MB)

Age-Friendly Employer Pledge

Age friendly training | Age NI

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Manage absence and sickness

Allowing time off work

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Source URL
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Links
Recruiting older workers

How employers can recruit fairly and avoid age discrimination when taking on new staff including older workers.

You must not discriminate on the grounds of age when recruiting new staff. The Employment Equality (Age) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2006 prohibit all employers, regardless of size, from subjecting job applicants and employees, including contract workers and former employees, to age discrimination and harassment. See more on age discrimination.
Age-neutral job adverts
You should use age-neutral language when advertising for job roles. References such as 'young', 'energetic', or 'recently qualified' are best avoided as this would discriminate against older workers. You could also consider using a strapline in job adverts to welcome all-age applicants, ensuring your organisation overcomes any unconscious bias or discrimination by tracking age profiles of successful candidates and potentially offering apprenticeships for older workers as well as the young.
During recruitment, you should evaluate candidates according to values, behaviours, competencies demonstrated, and their ability to do the job. See advertising a job and interviewing candidates.
Experience
Requirements when it comes to experience should be described in terms of type or depth of experience rather than a simple number of years of experience.
Qualifications
Applicants should only be asked for qualifications that are necessary for a job role. Looking for graduates might not be necessary for a particular role and may discriminate against older workers.
Interviewing
Avoid unscripted interviews, as this can often lead to discrimination when panel members ask inappropriate questions. You should ask the same questions to all candidates to ensure a fair, even, and unbiased interview process. Prepare the questions in advance and identify points that you would like candidates to address when answering their interview questions.
Promote your age-positive workplace
You can also promote your business as an age-positive employer. You could highlight the diverse age range in your workforce by featuring various members of staff through your company website or social media channels. Staff could share messages on why they enjoy working for you, and if there is any specific workplace 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ that you provide for them.

Developed with

The Equality Commission

Actions

Age discrimination in Northern Ireland - a guide for employers (PDF, 1.53MB)

Age-Friendly Employer Pledge

Age-Inclusive Business Review

Age friendly training | Age NI

Hospitality Guide to Recruiting Workers Aged 50+ | Tourism NI

Also on this site

Age discrimination

Advertise a job vacancy

Recruiting staff

Job offers and staff inductions

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/content/recruiting-older-workers

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Retain and retrain older workers

How employers can make efforts to retain staff to secure key skills and experience and how retraining older workers may be beneficial.
As an employer, you should take action to create a working environment that enables workers to develop and fulfil their potential and encourages them to stay. Recruiting and training new staff can be costly. Also, valuable skills and experience may be lost when an employee leaves, so you should make every effort to retain staff.
Retain and transfer key skills
You should plan effectively for an ageing workforce. Consider carrying out an age and skills audit to ensure you are making the most of staff knowledge and skills. This planning will help you identify your skills needs when there are future staff changes.
You should focus on how you facilitate the transfer of knowledge to younger staff, for example, through mentoring or getting older workers involved in planning and leading training and development programmes.
Retain existing workers
By providing workplace flexibility, you are considering the needs of all your workers.
Employers should consider the introduction of age-friendly workplace policies in areas that affect older workers, such as:
Flexible working
This can help to accommodate caring responsibilities, health considerations or changing the nature of a job role to lessen its physical demands. See flexible working: the law and best practice.
Phased retirement
See retirement ages and procedures.
Family care leave
See parental leave and time off for dependants.
Career gap breaks
Offer career breaks for staff so that they can deal with family responsibilities or pursue other interests with the security of returning to their job after a certain period of time.
Health and wellbeing
You could look at ways in which you promote healthy ageing in the workplace. For example, you could introduce fitness programmes at lunchtime or awareness sessions around healthy eating. See staff health and wellbeing.
Financial and retirement planning 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ
Employers can offer older staff the opportunity to understand their financial requirements for retirement. The age friendly training service from Age NI offers an opportunity for individuals aged 50+ to reflect and take a look at interrelated areas of their lives and provide an overview of three key areas:
financial wellbeing
health and wellbeing
career 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ
Employers can request group sessions to be delivered for their staff.
Alumni programmes
Rather than lose contact with workers when they leave your employment, you could look at creating an alumni programme that enables you to get insight into your business's successes and failures. You can also turn former employees into engaged brand ambassadors who can help promote your business as an ideal place to work.
Staff training and retraining
Retraining existing staff can be a cost-effective way of developing your existing talent pool and accessing new skills that your business requires. Staff retraining can also help reduce staff turnover as workers undergoing training will feel more valued, confident and motivated to do their job.
Age must not be a barrier to training opportunities - no one is ever too old to learn new skills. Older workers tend to be loyal and are less likely to change jobs frequently, so your business is likely to see the benefits of investing in training before the employee retires.
It is best practice for employers to discuss with their employees, regardless of age, their future aims and goals. This will help plan training and development needs. You should document any personal development discussion, hold the record for as long as there is a business need and provide a copy to the employee. See training your staff.
Age-Friendly Employer Pledge
As an employer, you can show you recognise the importance and value of older workers by committing to the Age-Friendly Employer Pledge. This initiative, run by the Centre for Ageing Better, outlines your commitment to promoting an age-friendly workplace through a number of actions.
Read further details on the Age-Friendly Employer Pledge.
Developed with

The Equality Commission

Actions

Age discrimination in Northern Ireland - a guide for employers (PDF, 1.53MB)

Age-Inclusive Business Review

Age at Work | BITC

Also on this site

Control staff turnover

Staff training

Develop staff skills through higher education

Further education training opportunities for your business

Content category

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Source URL
/content/retain-and-retrain-older-workers

Links
Five top tips to promote an age-diverse workforce

How employers can create a workplace that is inclusive to workers of all ages to give them a competitive advantage in recruitment and retention.
Research shows that businesses that promote an age-diverse workplace can benefit in many ways. Age diversity improves performance and productivity, reduces employee turnover, helps to drive innovation, and promotes stability.
Tips to create an age-inclusive workplace
We have outlined five top tips to help you create a workplace environment and culture where workers of all ages can feel welcomed, valued, and 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶed. These tips are especially helpful for older workers who may feel underrepresented and sometimes overlooked in the workplace.
1. Recruit from all age ranges
Develop an age-inclusive recruitment strategy to attract job applicants from all age ranges. To encourage older workers to apply for job vacancies, consider the language in your job descriptions and advertisements to avoid age bias. If you are an age-inclusive employer, promote this as part of your recruitment drive. Advertise your job vacancies across various media and digital channels to reach applicants from a diverse range of ages.
Examine the benefits package your organisation offers to attract job applicants and look at ways in which you could attract older workers, eg, offering flexible or part-time work. You should also take steps to ensure that staff are aware of how best to reduce bias and avoid discrimination throughout the recruitment process. See recruiting older workers.
2. Develop workplace policies promoting age-inclusiveness
Assess your current workplace policies on whether they help to promote age-inclusiveness. Adapt and enhance those existing policies where required. Identify gaps and determine if there are new policies that you could introduce to combat age discrimination and promote age-inclusiveness in your workplace.
Communicate and promote age-inclusiveness as part of your equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) strategy to make sure your staff and potential recruits are aware of the steps you are taking as an organisation to welcome people of all ages.
3. Identify and offer 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ on issues specific to older workers
Consider and offer help on issues that are specific to older workers, such as:
health, eg, menopause or reduced mobility;
finance, eg, pensions and planning for retirement;
caring responsibilities, eg, responsibility for an elderly parent or relative.
The best way to understand the issues facing your workers is to ask them. Create a staff forum or working group and get employees involved from a diverse range of ages in identifying and providing solutions to key challenges.
There are several organisations that provide guidance and advice to older people - you could provide signposts to this information, perhaps through a dedicated organisational intranet page.
4. Create an environment for shared learning
Older workers usually have a wealth of knowledge and experience. Provide an environment and culture that encourages knowledge and learning exchanges between workers in your organisation of different ages and varying levels of experience. This will ensure that vital knowledge and experience are not lost when older workers retire, but are transferred to younger and newer staff.
Provide opportunities for older and younger workers to interact and mix, eg, by building mixed-age teams and hosting age-inclusive social events. See training methods to fit your business.
5. Offer training and development opportunities that appeal to workers of all ages
Provide training and development opportunities that are attractive and open to workers of all ages. Consider that older workers may want to retrain on new technologies and processes that have been introduced into your organisation. Ensure that any development opportunities don't have any barriers that would prevent older workers from applying. See training your staff.
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Employment rights of older workers

bgraham — Fri, 28 Jun 2019 11:05:13 +0000

Employment rights of older workers bgraham Fri, 28/06/2019 - 12:05

Employing and 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶing older workers

In this guide:

Employment rights of older workers

How employers can meet the legal rights of older workers including retirement age, age discrimination, and caring for dependants including grandchildren and parents.
Employers should fully understand employment rights and the role of equal opportunities, practices, and procedures relating to older workers.
Recent years have seen the introduction of various policy reforms to encourage the participation and retention of older workers in employment.
How to prevent workplace age discrimination
It is generally unlawful for an employer to discriminate on the grounds of age - ie, to treat individuals of any age less favourably than others on the grounds of age.
Recruitment
To avoid age discrimination, you should check that your recruitment process is non-discriminatory. For example, aim to place advertisements in publications read by a range of age groups. Also, avoid using terms that imply a particular age group, such as 'mature', 'enthusiastic', 'highly experienced', or 'recent graduate'. See avoid discrimination when recruiting staff.
Redundancies
If you are making employees redundant, you should similarly ensure that you base procedures on business needs rather than age. For example, it could be discriminatory to select employees for redundancy solely based on when they joined your business - 'last in, first out'. See redundancy and lay-offs.
When age discrimination may be lawful
There are limited circumstances when age discrimination can be lawful. To read about age discrimination exceptions and examples, see age discrimination.
Develop age-related work policies
Age discrimination can affect workers of any age. Having an equal opportunities policy that explicitly mentions age could indicate your commitment to the fair treatment of and eliminating discrimination against workers of all ages. See equality and diversity workplace policies.
Training
You should also ensure appropriate training is provided to your managers and staff on workplace discrimination, with some focus on age discrimination. This will help to increase awareness of age discrimination and how to minimise it in the workplace.
Understand the rules for retirement
The statutory default retirement age in the UK was abolished in 2011. As a result, if an employer forces an employee to retire once they reach a certain age, that act would be direct age discrimination and is likely to be unlawful unless it can be objectively justified. See retirement ages and procedures.
An employee can retire voluntarily at a time that they choose and beyond their state pension age unless the job has a lawfully justified 'compulsory retirement age'. The reasons for compulsory retirement may include exceptional circumstances such as:
the job requires certain physical abilities (eg, in the construction industry)
the job has an age limit set by law (eg, commercial pilots)
Employers who set compulsory retirement age rules, also known as Employer Justified Retirement Ages (EJRA), must consider whether that retirement age can be objectively justified, for example, in terms of workforce planning, or the health and safety of individual employees, their colleagues, and the public. In addition, an employer will need to demonstrate that the compulsory retirement age is objectively justified; ie, that it is a proportionate means of achieving that objective.
See the Equality Commission's guide for employers on age discrimination in Northern Ireland (PDF, 1.53MB).
Provide flexible working arrangements
Older workers may prefer flexible working arrangements.
Every employee has the statutory right to request flexible working for any reason after 26 weeks of employment. Employees can make one flexible working application every 12 months. A year runs from the date the most recent application was made. If you accept an employee's flexible working request, this will be a permanent change to their contractual terms and conditions unless you agree otherwise.
There are different forms of flexible working, for example, homeworking, temporary contracts, part-time, flexitime, or job sharing. Employers should ensure the equal promotion of flexible working to staff of all ages. Develop clear procedures and criteria for how to apply for flexible working. See flexible working: the law and best practice.
Caring for grandchildren and dependants: rights at work
Apart from the right to request flexible working arrangements, outlined above, under employment law in Northern Ireland grandparents, generally, have no other statutory rights to paid or unpaid time off to care for their grandchildren.
Grandparents may have the right to parental leave in limited circumstances if they have adopted the child or have a residence order made in their favour giving them parental responsibility. Employees must have one year's employment service, and parental leave can be taken up until the child's 18th birthday. See parental leave entitlement.
All employees have the right to reasonable time off for dependants to deal with emergencies or unforeseen matters involving someone who depends on them for caring responsibilities. This could be to deal with a breakdown in childcare or if a child falls ill. It could also be used to deal with caring responsibilities for older relatives or parents who may be ill. Employers do not have to pay for this time off, but some employers may under the terms and conditions of employment. See time off to deal with emergencies involving dependants.
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Advantages of employing and retaining older workers

Key benefits that employing and retaining older workers can bring to businesses.
There is a wide range of advantages that employing older workers can bring to your business, especially when you have a mix of different ages across your workforce.
Age-diversity benefits
Age diversity can bring many benefits to your business. Employers can reap the benefits of experience and loyalty that older workers can bring. There may also be broader advantages for others within the workplace.
Working in an age-diverse team brings benefits, including fresh perspectives, knowledge-sharing, and improved problem-solving. Where there is an age-diverse workforce, businesses have seen advantages including:
increased productivity
skills diversity
better inclusiveness
opportunities for mentorships
improved staff retention
Benefits of employing older workers
Employing older workers can bring the following advantages to your business:
Experience and knowledge
Older workers bring life experience as well as accumulated knowledge from many years of working. You can tap into these strengths to help overcome workplace challenges and identify business opportunities.
New ideas and opportunities
If you are developing new ideas or searching for new business opportunities, an age-diverse workforce can prove helpful in weighing up the potential risks and benefits. Such foresight can help suggest new ideas or efficient ways of doing things.
Focused workers
Older workers are likely to analyse business tasks from a measured or calculated point of view rather than from an emotional one. This, in turn, can lead to fewer mistakes.
Problem-solving
Older workers with their experience, maturity, and often calming influence can help solve problems that may arise in the workplace, whether they are difficult business decisions or workplace conflict.
Positive role models
Older workers can be a positive influence on younger or less experienced workers. They often perform well in training or mentoring roles.
Resilience
Older workers are likely to have experienced difficult times throughout their working life, and so are often resilient when faced with a business challenge.
Commitment
On average, older workers report higher job satisfaction and are less likely to switch jobs. A reduction in staff turnover can create stability in the workforce and is more cost-effective than recruiting and retraining new staff. See control staff turnover.
Adaptability
Older workers are likely to have experienced frequent changes during their working careers, so they often adapt well to the need for new skills and changing technology.
Responsibility
Older workers are inclined to take on roles that require a level of responsibility, such as management positions, and are often willing to accept accountability if things go wrong.
Customer service
Older workers usually place value on customer service, which can help you similarly maintain a focus on providing quality service.
Consider the challenges too
Despite the many advantages, there are some possible challenges for employers managing older workers, as with staff of any age. See ageing workforce: challenges for staff and employers.
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Ageing workforce: challenges for staff and employers

How employers can identify and address the challenges of an ageing workforce.

The steps for effectively managing older workers are the same as for staff of any age. However, there are some issues that affect older workers in particular. It is important to understand the challenges that older employees might face and take steps to 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ them.
Challenges for older workers
Challenges for older workers can include:
Age discrimination
There are often stereotypes of older workers being less agile, technophobic, more prone to sickness absence, and resistant to change. Read how to avoid age discrimination.
Part-time or flexible working requirements
Part-time work and the demand for flexible working are more common among older workers than among younger age groups. Ensure the equal promotion of flexible working to all staff. Develop clear procedures and criteria for how to apply for flexible working.
See flexible working for over 50s - a toolkit for employers (PDF, 3.63MB).
Physical or mental challenges of job roles
Employers must make reasonable adjustments to ensure workers with disabilities, such as physical or mental health conditions, aren't substantially disadvantaged when doing their jobs. See improve access and use of facilities for disabled employees and managing and 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶing employees with mental ill health.
Absenteeism
Promoting staff wellbeing and healthier lifestyles can also help reduce staff absences due to sickness. Employers should address this by asking workers if there is anything they can do to 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ them, so they are happier in the workplace and absences are minimised.
Caring responsibilities
Older workers often have caring responsibilities, eg, for elderly parents. This can cause stress and worry about the health and wellbeing of a close relative. The worker may also need to take time off work to help care for a relative, eg, to take an elderly parent to a hospital appointment. Employees with elder care responsibilities should be offered the same flexibility as those with childcare responsibilities.
Retirement age
The statutory default retirement age has been abolished, so most people can now work for as long as they want to. If an employee chooses to work longer, they can't be discriminated against unlawfully on the grounds of age. Employers should 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ staff with planning their future career development goals and the transition from employment to retirement when an employee decides to retire. See training your staff and providing 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ for a retiring employee.
Older women and the menopause
Health issues affect all workers, but some can be overlooked by employers. While many women may go through menopause with relatively little discomfort, many others report a range of symptoms such as hot flushes, irritability, sleep disturbances, fatigue, depression, impaired memory, and anxiety. Menopause awareness amongst managers and the option of flexible working may help female staff. See menopause in the workplace: employer guidance.

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Recruiting older workers

How employers can recruit fairly and avoid age discrimination when taking on new staff including older workers.

You must not discriminate on the grounds of age when recruiting new staff. The Employment Equality (Age) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2006 prohibit all employers, regardless of size, from subjecting job applicants and employees, including contract workers and former employees, to age discrimination and harassment. See more on age discrimination.
Age-neutral job adverts
You should use age-neutral language when advertising for job roles. References such as 'young', 'energetic', or 'recently qualified' are best avoided as this would discriminate against older workers. You could also consider using a strapline in job adverts to welcome all-age applicants, ensuring your organisation overcomes any unconscious bias or discrimination by tracking age profiles of successful candidates and potentially offering apprenticeships for older workers as well as the young.
During recruitment, you should evaluate candidates according to values, behaviours, competencies demonstrated, and their ability to do the job. See advertising a job and interviewing candidates.
Experience
Requirements when it comes to experience should be described in terms of type or depth of experience rather than a simple number of years of experience.
Qualifications
Applicants should only be asked for qualifications that are necessary for a job role. Looking for graduates might not be necessary for a particular role and may discriminate against older workers.
Interviewing
Avoid unscripted interviews, as this can often lead to discrimination when panel members ask inappropriate questions. You should ask the same questions to all candidates to ensure a fair, even, and unbiased interview process. Prepare the questions in advance and identify points that you would like candidates to address when answering their interview questions.
Promote your age-positive workplace
You can also promote your business as an age-positive employer. You could highlight the diverse age range in your workforce by featuring various members of staff through your company website or social media channels. Staff could share messages on why they enjoy working for you, and if there is any specific workplace 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ that you provide for them.

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Retain and retrain older workers

How employers can make efforts to retain staff to secure key skills and experience and how retraining older workers may be beneficial.
As an employer, you should take action to create a working environment that enables workers to develop and fulfil their potential and encourages them to stay. Recruiting and training new staff can be costly. Also, valuable skills and experience may be lost when an employee leaves, so you should make every effort to retain staff.
Retain and transfer key skills
You should plan effectively for an ageing workforce. Consider carrying out an age and skills audit to ensure you are making the most of staff knowledge and skills. This planning will help you identify your skills needs when there are future staff changes.
You should focus on how you facilitate the transfer of knowledge to younger staff, for example, through mentoring or getting older workers involved in planning and leading training and development programmes.
Retain existing workers
By providing workplace flexibility, you are considering the needs of all your workers.
Employers should consider the introduction of age-friendly workplace policies in areas that affect older workers, such as:
Flexible working
This can help to accommodate caring responsibilities, health considerations or changing the nature of a job role to lessen its physical demands. See flexible working: the law and best practice.
Phased retirement
See retirement ages and procedures.
Family care leave
See parental leave and time off for dependants.
Career gap breaks
Offer career breaks for staff so that they can deal with family responsibilities or pursue other interests with the security of returning to their job after a certain period of time.
Health and wellbeing
You could look at ways in which you promote healthy ageing in the workplace. For example, you could introduce fitness programmes at lunchtime or awareness sessions around healthy eating. See staff health and wellbeing.
Financial and retirement planning 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ
Employers can offer older staff the opportunity to understand their financial requirements for retirement. The age friendly training service from Age NI offers an opportunity for individuals aged 50+ to reflect and take a look at interrelated areas of their lives and provide an overview of three key areas:
financial wellbeing
health and wellbeing
career 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ
Employers can request group sessions to be delivered for their staff.
Alumni programmes
Rather than lose contact with workers when they leave your employment, you could look at creating an alumni programme that enables you to get insight into your business's successes and failures. You can also turn former employees into engaged brand ambassadors who can help promote your business as an ideal place to work.
Staff training and retraining
Retraining existing staff can be a cost-effective way of developing your existing talent pool and accessing new skills that your business requires. Staff retraining can also help reduce staff turnover as workers undergoing training will feel more valued, confident and motivated to do their job.
Age must not be a barrier to training opportunities - no one is ever too old to learn new skills. Older workers tend to be loyal and are less likely to change jobs frequently, so your business is likely to see the benefits of investing in training before the employee retires.
It is best practice for employers to discuss with their employees, regardless of age, their future aims and goals. This will help plan training and development needs. You should document any personal development discussion, hold the record for as long as there is a business need and provide a copy to the employee. See training your staff.
Age-Friendly Employer Pledge
As an employer, you can show you recognise the importance and value of older workers by committing to the Age-Friendly Employer Pledge. This initiative, run by the Centre for Ageing Better, outlines your commitment to promoting an age-friendly workplace through a number of actions.
Read further details on the Age-Friendly Employer Pledge.
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Five top tips to promote an age-diverse workforce

How employers can create a workplace that is inclusive to workers of all ages to give them a competitive advantage in recruitment and retention.
Research shows that businesses that promote an age-diverse workplace can benefit in many ways. Age diversity improves performance and productivity, reduces employee turnover, helps to drive innovation, and promotes stability.
Tips to create an age-inclusive workplace
We have outlined five top tips to help you create a workplace environment and culture where workers of all ages can feel welcomed, valued, and 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶed. These tips are especially helpful for older workers who may feel underrepresented and sometimes overlooked in the workplace.
1. Recruit from all age ranges
Develop an age-inclusive recruitment strategy to attract job applicants from all age ranges. To encourage older workers to apply for job vacancies, consider the language in your job descriptions and advertisements to avoid age bias. If you are an age-inclusive employer, promote this as part of your recruitment drive. Advertise your job vacancies across various media and digital channels to reach applicants from a diverse range of ages.
Examine the benefits package your organisation offers to attract job applicants and look at ways in which you could attract older workers, eg, offering flexible or part-time work. You should also take steps to ensure that staff are aware of how best to reduce bias and avoid discrimination throughout the recruitment process. See recruiting older workers.
2. Develop workplace policies promoting age-inclusiveness
Assess your current workplace policies on whether they help to promote age-inclusiveness. Adapt and enhance those existing policies where required. Identify gaps and determine if there are new policies that you could introduce to combat age discrimination and promote age-inclusiveness in your workplace.
Communicate and promote age-inclusiveness as part of your equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) strategy to make sure your staff and potential recruits are aware of the steps you are taking as an organisation to welcome people of all ages.
3. Identify and offer 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ on issues specific to older workers
Consider and offer help on issues that are specific to older workers, such as:
health, eg, menopause or reduced mobility;
finance, eg, pensions and planning for retirement;
caring responsibilities, eg, responsibility for an elderly parent or relative.
The best way to understand the issues facing your workers is to ask them. Create a staff forum or working group and get employees involved from a diverse range of ages in identifying and providing solutions to key challenges.
There are several organisations that provide guidance and advice to older people - you could provide signposts to this information, perhaps through a dedicated organisational intranet page.
4. Create an environment for shared learning
Older workers usually have a wealth of knowledge and experience. Provide an environment and culture that encourages knowledge and learning exchanges between workers in your organisation of different ages and varying levels of experience. This will ensure that vital knowledge and experience are not lost when older workers retire, but are transferred to younger and newer staff.
Provide opportunities for older and younger workers to interact and mix, eg, by building mixed-age teams and hosting age-inclusive social events. See training methods to fit your business.
5. Offer training and development opportunities that appeal to workers of all ages
Provide training and development opportunities that are attractive and open to workers of all ages. Consider that older workers may want to retrain on new technologies and processes that have been introduced into your organisation. Ensure that any development opportunities don't have any barriers that would prevent older workers from applying. See training your staff.
Actions

Age-Inclusive Business Review

Age friendly training | Age NI

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Employing and 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶing older workers

bgraham — Fri, 28 Jun 2019 10:57:33 +0000

Employing and 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶing older workers bgraham Fri, 28/06/2019 - 11:57

Introduction

Mental Health Charter

kmcgowan — Thu, 19 Jan 2017 12:38:24 +0000

Mental Health Charter kmcgowan Thu, 19/01/2017 - 12:38

Manage and 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ employees with mental ill health

In this guide:

Problems caused by poor management of mental ill health

Poor management of mental ill health can create a number of issues, including conflict, high staff turnover, and increased costs.
Mental ill health can sometimes be seen as a stigma by those who experience it, so they may be worried about discussing their situation, causing the symptoms to worsen.

In addition, it is often seen as a sensitive issue for employers, so they may feel concerned about addressing the subject with an employee.

Incorrectly dealing with mental ill health could greatly impact the wellbeing of your staff, and that in turn could hinder the growth and development of your business.

Negative effects of poor management of mental ill health in the workplace

Poor management of mental ill health or not recognising it in your business could create a number of issues, including:

conflict between colleagues

the individual is having difficulty completing tasks

high staff turnover

high absenteeism

poor reputation

low productivity

increased costs

workplace accidents

Read about how to 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ employees with mental ill health.

Mental health in the workplace webinar

The Labour Relations Agency (LRA) mental health in the workplace webinar will help raise your awareness of mental health, develop your understanding of key issues around mental health, and equip you with ways in which you can better manage mental health in the workplace.
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Advantages of a positive mental health workplace culture

Key benefits of creating a workplace culture that respects and helps employees with mental ill health.
Many forms of mental ill health are likely to be disabilities and, where that is so, you as an employer have a responsibility under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 to ensure that relevant job seekers and employees are not subjected to disability discrimination.

Disability discrimination can occur in a number of ways, for example, disability-related harassment might occur where derogatory or insensitive comments are made about an employee's mental ill health.

Reasonable adjustments

However, the most common form of disability discrimination occurs where an employer fails to comply with the duty to make reasonable adjustments. This is a special duty which requires employers to remove or reduce physical, procedural and attitudinal barriers that prevent disabled people from enjoying the same equality of opportunity in employment that non-disabled people enjoy.

Creating a positive mental health culture will greatly help employers to comply with the reasonable adjustment duty.

Advantages of creating a culture for positive mental health

Some of the key benefits of creating a culture that respects and helps employees with mental ill health are that it can:

reduce staff turnover and retain key skills

make your business more attractive to potential employees

show you have a demonstrable aspect of corporate social responsibility

reduce sick absence

create a healthier workplace

create a more engaged, motivated, and committed workforce

help your business provide a better service

help you to comply with the reasonable adjustment duty

Mental health in the workplace webinar

The Labour Relations Agency (LRA) mental health in the workplace webinar will help raise your awareness of mental health, develop your understanding of key issues around mental health, and equip you with ways in which you can better manage mental health in the workplace.
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How to 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ employees with mental ill health

Ways that you can 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ employees if they are experiencing mental health issues.
To 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ your employees, you should create a workplace culture that is open and inclusive, which displays respect for job seekers and employees who have mental ill health so that they feel comfortable about disclosing any mental health issues.

Methods of 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶing your staff with mental ill health

Other ways you could 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ your staff include:

Promote awareness of mental health issues amongst employees.

Put relevant wellbeing and equality policies and procedures in place.

Ensure line managers have the correct information about the correct practices and procedures so they can help an employee with mental ill health issues stay in employment.

Ensure there is good communication between line managers and employees.

Use appraisals or one-to-one meetings to talk about any concerns an employee may have.

Put reasonable adjustments in place, eg, changes to the employee's working area or allowing the employee to take time off work for appointments.

Learn to spot the warning signs of mental ill health, eg, an increase in unexplained absences, poor performance, or withdrawal from social contact.

Develop greater work/life balance initiatives, eg, encouraging regular breaks.

Sign up to the Equality Commission's Mental Health Charter.

Mental health advice videos

The Equality Commission has produced a couple of short videos to help employers and their staff manage and promote positive mental health in the workplace:

Mental health advice for employers

Mental health advice for employees

Mental health in the workplace webinar

The Labour Relations Agency (LRA) mental health in the workplace webinar will help raise your awareness of mental health, develop your understanding of key issues around mental health and equip you with ways in which you can better manage mental health in the workplace.
Developed with

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Mental Health Charter - Equality Commission

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Mental ill health: 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ for employers

Sources of 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ for employers to manage employee mental health issues.
There is a range of 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ available for employers dealing with promoting equality and mental health issues in Northern Ireland.

Equality Commission 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ

The Equality Commission provides detailed guidance for employers and service providers on issues such as hiring new staff, redundancy, managing absence and flexible working.

In addition, through the Equality Commission's employer training programme, employers can attend training seminars and information sessions on a wide range of equality issues including promoting disability equality in the workplace, managing bullying and harassment and recruiting fairly.

Mental health organisations

There are also a number of mental health organisations in Northern Ireland that can provide advice and help businesses to put reasonable adjustments in place.

These include:

Action Mental Health

Disability Action

MindWise

Mental Health Foundation

Inspire

Aware

Search for other mental health organisations in Northern Ireland.

Government 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ programmes

The Health and Work Support Branch, which is part of the Department for Communities, provides specialist 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ programmes to help employers recruit and retain disabled workers.

This 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ includes Workable (NI), Access to Work (NI) and Condition Management Programme.

Read more on 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ if you employ someone who is disabled.

Mental health in the workplace webinar

The Labour Relations Agency (LRA) mental health in the workplace webinar will help raise your awareness of mental health, develop your understanding of key issues around mental health and equip you with ways in which you can better manage mental health in the workplace.
Developed with

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Common workplace adjustments for staff experiencing mental ill health

Also on this site

Prevent discrimination and value diversity

Support employee work-life balance

Occupational health and welfare

Employ and 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ people with disabilities

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Mental Health Charter

The Equality Commission’s Mental Health Charter will help you to put in place the correct procedures for a more motivated workforce.

The Mental Health Charter, which has been jointly produced by the Equality Commission, Action Mental Health, Disability Action, MindWise, Mental Health Foundation, Inspire and Change Your Mind, provides a framework for working towards mentally healthy workplaces.

How can the Mental Health Charter help employers?

By signing up to the Mental Health Charter, you will be able to put in place the correct policies, practices, and procedures which will greatly help you to create an open and inclusive culture that shows respect for those with mental ill health.

The Equality Commission can also provide you with free information and training resources to help you meet the charter commitments.

Read more on the Mental Health Charter.

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The Equality Commission

Breastfeeding and the workplace

Pregnancy at work

Health and safety of pregnant workers

Workplace risk assessment

Notification from a pregnant worker

Pre-maternity leave meeting

Potential hazards for pregnant workers

Rest facilities for pregnant and breastfeeding mothers

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Medical suspension on maternity grounds

Right to the offer of alternative work

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Employees' right to paid time off for antenatal care

Reasonable time off for medical appointments

Payment during time off

Complaints relating to time off for antenatal care

Time off to accompany to antenatal appointments

Spouse or civil partner

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Pregnant workers, dismissal and discrimination

Pregnancy and dismissal

Sex discrimination

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Breastfeeding and the workplace

Business benefits

Breastfeeding and rest periods

Breastfeeding facilities

Breastfeeding workplace policy

Workplace health and safety for breastfeeding employees

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Fertility treatment and the workplace

Supporting employees going through fertility treatment

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Get help to review your equality-related workplace policies

Implement an equality plan

What is an equality plan?

Equality plan templates

Equality plan sample template

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Advantages of workplace equality plans

Advantages of having an equality plan

Developing an equality plan with the Equality Commission

Business benefits of an equality plan

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How to develop an equality plan

Step 1: Review your existing equality practices

Step 2: Draw up an equality plan

Step 3: Train staff and promote equality across the workplace

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Equality monitoring and review of your business

What does equality monitoring involve?

Take action on equality processes

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Links

Get help to review your equality-related workplace policies

How do I make use of the Equality Commission service?

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Links

Implement an equality plan

Creating and updating workplace policies to focus on diversity and inclusion - Greiner Packaging Ltd

Delivering diversity and inclusion through our workplace policies

Our plans to introduce new workplace policies

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Links

Menopause in the workplace

Menstruation, menstrual health and menopause in the workplace

Menstruation and menstrual health 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ in the workplace

Steps for workplace menstruation and menstrual health 91�㽶��ɫ��Ƶ

Build an open and inclusive culture

Raise awareness and end the taboos and stigma