Age Discrimination Trilogy – Part 3

Workplace Discussions: are they discriminatory?

In the final part of our three part series (in which we review some of the trickier issues thrown up by the abolition of the default retirement age), we look at potentially sensitive issues arising from workplace discussions - which ACAS encourages - concerning retirement.

A recent survey of employers' attitudes to the abolition of the statutory retirement procedure has returned some interesting results:

• Over 46% of employers expressed that phasing out of the default retirement age will have a negative impact on their business;
• Nearly 50% of the employers indicated they would now wait for the employee to raise the subject of retirement before discussing it with them;