Case study
West Yorkshire Magistrates Courts Service
Age Positive Champion
We became involved with the Age Positive campaign as the result of a nomination from the former Bradford TEC as a 'Best Practice' employer. The TEC had a department which dealt solely with job seekers aged 40 years and older. We used them to attract applicants from this age group. We believe that age discrimination is wasteful of the talents and skills of many people.
Age positive is an important step towards a truly diverse staff. As with families, organisations work at their best when all generations pool experience and pull together.
Stuart Baker, Justices’ Chief Executive
OUR AGE POSITIVE GOOD PRACTICE:
We have a formal and comprehensive Equal Opportunities policy which includes age. The fact that discrimination on the basis of age will not be tolerated within the WYMCS is mentioned frequently throughout our policies. Employees are asked to be careful in the use of humour and the choice of language in order to avoid an impression of discriminatory behaviour. All staff are given equal opportunities training and those involved in recruitment and selection receive training in non-discriminatory interviewing techniques.
Recruitment adverts are placed in locations likely to attract interest from particular groups of workers. For example, adverts are placed in papers and journals likely to attract applicants from different ethnic minority groups. In order to attract older workers WYMCS have developed links with a specialist recruitment agency that focuses on placing older members of the workforce in jobs. They also advertise in local colleges, in order to recruit both young people, and those looking for work following a period of ‘mid-life’ training. In addition, WYMCS ensure that all adverts exclude any potential for age bias. All job roles have a job and person specification, and adverts are drawn up in relation to these. Age is not referred to in any advert placed, neither is covertly discriminatory language used which might dissuade older applicants.
Job applicants complete a standard employment application form. This has a detachable front sheet on which applicants complete personal details. Selection panels do not see the front sheet, and all application forms are referred to by reference codes only. Promotion is wholly on the basis of merit. The majority of new or vacant positions are advertised internally as well as externally. Hence, whether advertised internally or externally promotions are based on the same non-discriminatory criteria as new appointments.
BENEFITS OF OUR GOOD PRACTICE:
Older workers bring many benefits to WYMCS. For example, employment retention rates tend to be higher – this helps to provide stability to the organisation. Attendance rates are also generally high. It is felt that older workers bring a sense of 'balance' to the organisation, have patience, and are particularly skilled in coaching and mentoring younger members of staff in work related skills and life-skills. They bring particular benefit to the organisation in the way in which they deal with members of the public.
Younger members of staff often benefit from observing the way in which older members of staff deal with difficult situations that can arise at court sites where tensions can often be high. An example of this concerns how one older member of staff dealt with a potentially difficult situation at a court site, disffusing a potentially problematic situation by the way he handled matters. Younger members of staff have since followed the example he set, and sought to emulate his approach when dealing with similar situations.
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