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 Is age discrimination sexy? Well you might say so if you were aware that whilst the average awards for disability discrimination, sex discrimination, race discrimination and sexual orientation discrimination all fell last year, but age discrimination, clearly the sexy discrimination topic of 2010/11, experienced a tripling if the average award paid out to £30,289. With religious discrimination following behind with average awards increasing from £4,886 to £8,515!
If memory serves me right, we have experienced this before, with tribunals awarding larger settlements seemingly in line with topics of high media interest which of course, age discrimination currently is, as a result of the removal of the default retirement age.
So much for having injury to feelings compensation bands that provide both logic and structure to how compensation is calculated, for it does appear to be very much ‘finger in the wind’ when that suits…
But sexy age discrimination or not, I just can’t get past this enormous compensation culture in the UK when we read of ex servicemen and women who have lost limbs – or even been killed - who get less than some discrimination claimants and only in the past few days have we read of 24 slaves being ‘rescued’ who have clearly not had access to even the most basic employment or welfare rights.
And for those of you who just want to think of 24 slaves as a one off, this is what I tweeted about not so many months ago… Britain told to do more to protect slaves in embassies in the UK. It’s not much talked about, but slavery in the UK is alive and well!
But returning to the topic of compensation, to what extent are HR professionals even aware of the enormous differences in how people are treated and compensated (when claims are brought) in the UK? Do they put more effort into a grievance hearing about age discrimination or spend more time responding to a tribunal claim for age discrimination given the potential cost to the business or are all employment grievances and tribunal claims given equal time and effort?
Are line managers educated in the fact that in the UK we have a hierarchy of discrimination claims, but some types if discrimination attracting higher compensation than others? Are directors sufficiently informed about how the ‘system’ works to be able to prioritise training budgets and make decisions on difficult staffing matters? And outside of organisations, are our Tribunal Judges and those making new laws in government sufficiently in touch with the real world to understand that there needs to be a sense of fair play and appropriateness for the system to be respected?
Or is a sense of fair play and appropriateness not necessary in our compliance driven society?
But enough of this, I’m old – or so my passport tells me – and half an hour older than when I started writing this, so sexy topic as it is, I reckon that with each passing day my opportunity for claiming age discrimination from someone somewhere just gets better and better…
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