The Select Committee chair and Conservative party MP Maria Miller said the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) had failed to establish specific enforcement actions across employers in both the public and private sectors to prevent age discrimination.
Miller called on the EHRC and the government to work together on pushing recruitment agencies to collect data on where older workers are being excluded and developing a plan of action to remove discrimination from the recruitment process.
“Age discrimination in the workplace is a serious problem, as many older people have discovered,” she said. “Yet despite it being unlawful for more than a decade, the scale and lack of enforcement uncovered by our inquiry is both alarming and totally unacceptable.
“As a country we face serious challenges recruiting and retaining an experienced and skilled workforce. Until we tackle discrimination against the growing number of over-50s, they will continue to be consigned to the ‘too old’ pile instead of being part of the solution.
“The business case for an age-diverse workforce is clear. Despite this, employers continue to organise workplaces around an outdated, inflexible model that this inquiry and our past inquiries into fathers in the workplace and the gender pay gap show no longer works.”
For printers, it is a case of balancing the need to comply with age discrimination laws alongside the requirement to put in place a new generation of young print workers to carry the industry forward into the future.
According to the BPIF, print is facing an “increasingly ageing workforce” as people live for longer and therefore wish to remain in work for longer. It recommended a flexible approach to succession planning and recruitment measures as the arc of the typical working life becomes more flexible, with a focus on skill development and high performance over age.
HR advisor Linda Harrison said: “Intergenerational mixed groups of employees bring a number of potential tensions. They need managing well and BPIF member companies have been provided with a wide range of tools and training to allow them to understand the legislation and consequences of age discrimination, but also, more importantly, to garner the best from all their staff whatever their age.
“From a human resources management perspective, it is always best practice for employers to be aware of the age profile of their workforce. They should be proactive in their recruitment exercises when replacing leavers of any age to ensure the correct skill balance and age diversity is realised and maintained.”
At Leeds-based Resource, the commercial printer’s 55-strong headcount boasts a “good level of different age groups across the board”, sharing wisdom and knowledge across generations, according to HR director Gail Weathers.
She said: “Most of our recruitment tends to be done through agencies where ages are not divulged on candidates’ CVs. When hiring directly, we make use of equal opportunities forms and make sure ages are not made clear.
“In manufacturing, we have a number of employees around 45-50 years old and our oldest employee is 70, having been in the industry a long time. When doing training we try to ‘buddy up’ older and younger staff so that knowledge and experience can be cascaded down to the next generation.
“All of our employment policy is completely in line with the Equality Act 2010 and our three-stage recruitment process ensures that the person and their skills, regardless of age, are best suited to the job we choose them for.”
Recommendations in the committee’s report included developing policy that treats older workers as individuals rather than a homogenous group and enforced data transparency for companies with more than 250 members of staff, similar to the policy on the gender pay gap and sexist discrimination brought into law earlier this year.
Leicester-headquartered Go Inspire Group employs 550 staff, which would put it in this bracket if the proposal became policy.
Group head of HR Gary Cuppelditch said: “At Go Inspire, we craft our recruitment policy around the Equality Act. Managers receive appropriate anti-bias training if they are to be involved in the process. Our mantra is ‘recruit for attitude and train for skill’, and that can-do, positive attitude is not something we have found to be age-specific.
“As an industry, print historically has a lot of people with significant longevity of service, and thus niche skills that are hugely valuable. It is about that professional and personal experience they can pass on – as a 53-year-old head of HR, I fall into that category myself.
“People with experience can help people without it. We have had very few formal or informal reports of discrimination in the workplace, age-related or otherwise.”
