ABSTRACT
The age discrimination regulations impacts all areas of employment for compliance reasons. These include recruitment; retirement; pay, benefits and pensions; health and sickness; harassment and discrimination; performance management; succession planning; career development and promotion; training and lifelong learning; and work–life balance and flexible working. All recruitment practices need reviewing and updating to ensure age-neutral processes. This includes advertising strategy and remit; age-neutral application forms; short-listing using competencies, not experience as criteria; and non-stereotypical interviews. Demographic change is affecting the worldwide population. The demographic change could lead to leadership gaps at all levels. It can lead to blockage for younger staff so flexibility in role change needs to be introduced through good career development processes. Competence-based performance management is essential to ensure that all workers' goals and aspirations are met to ensure peak performance. Flexible working practices will enable staff to work in new ways to meet their own and business demands.
