Tackling age discrimination

2010-11 Tribunals Service statistics have revealed that the number of age discrimination claims accepted by employment tribunals has risen by nearly one third (30.8%) to 6,800.

                                                        Personneltoday, 2011

                                                      

The statistics, which cover the period from 1st April 2010 until 21st March 2011, shows that the number of overall claims has decreased by 8% on the previous year.

Adrian Crawford, employment partner at law firm Kingsley Napley, comments: "It is noteworthy that while age discrimination claims are still a long way behind sex discrimination, they are now catching up with disability claims and have overtaken race-related claims to be the third most frequent type of discrimination action.

"Everybody has an age so anyone can potentially formulate an age discrimination claim. This may explain why there are already so many claims even before we have felt the impact of the abolition of the default retirement age, which is likely to lead to a huge increase in age discrimination claims."

Housing Jobs prides itself on providing a discrimination free job seeking process. The ability to upload/view job descriptions, person specifications and create tailored job descriptions helps housing associations reach their equality and diversity aims.

All aspects of employment are protected from age discrimination. This includes:

•Recruitment – advertising/application forms and interviewing
•Training
•Promotions and transfers
•Employment benefits
•Employment terms and conditions
•Flexible working
•Redundancy
•Retirement
•Sickness benefit
•Dismissals

If you think you may have been a victim of age discrimination, visit the direct.gov.uk website for help on what to do next.

How to improve your time management skills

Time management is one of those skills that you're not taught during your time in education, but is vital in the professional world. The ability to prioritise and organise your workload will differentiate yourself within the workplace. Your colleagues will respect and admire how you keep level headed under pressure due to your organised outlook and colour-coded 'post it notes'! If you struggle with time management, here's our top eight tips to help you achieve this level of recognition:

1. Track your daily activities - Keeping track of your daily activities - what you did and the time frames involved - will help evaluate where you're wasting time and where you need more time assigned. If you use Outlook, you can utilise your calender to do so, or if you prefer a pen and paper, keep a diary.
2. Create to-do lists - To-do lists will prevent you forgetting about tasks and make sure you complete the tasks in order of priority. Soon, you won't be able to start a days work without creating a list! Once again, Outlook provides you with the option to create a task list, or if you prefer, just use a notepad/diary.
3. Avoid leaving e-mails sitting in your inbox - Keep your inbox organised with designated folders. Schedule regular times to check your e-mails, and action them as soon as you've read them - otherwise you'll end up forgetting about said e-mail!
4. Be careful when multi-tasking - Multi-tasking isn't something to take lightly. People often take so much on board they end up becoming overwhelmed and forgetting about certain tasks. Don't be afraid to say no!
5. Keep your website bookmarks organised - Bookmark websites that you regularly visit, then organise them by folders. This will reduce time, and prevent you losing any relevant websites!
6. Be honest with yourself - Assess when you're at most productive. Everyone has a time in the day when they work best. If that's the morning, then prioritise your most important work to do during the morning, that way you will achieve more within your working day.
7. Set time limits - Use your outlook or diary to set time frames for each task. Regularly assess these time frames. If you're running out of times for certain tasks, then make sure you assign a longer time frame the next time.
8. Take your time - People want quality work, not rushed. Don't be afraid to take your time, accuracy is more important than rushing and producing work littered with mistakes. Remember the tortoise and the hare?

“Choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life.”

Research has found that 11am on a Tuesday is the most depressing time of the week. Monday is gone but you're still 3.5 days away from the weekend. You've caught up on all your e-mails, and now it's time to get down to the nitty gritty. So here at Housing Jobs, we thought we'd try cheer you up with some feel good quotes...

“Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am.” - Parker J. Palmer

“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan “press on” has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.” - Calvin Coolidge

"Happiness is an attitude. We either make ourselves miserable, or happy and strong. The amount of work is the same." - Francesca Reigler

And a more light-hearted one...

“Hard work never killed anybody, but why take a chance?” - 

Edgar Bergen  

Talk about diversity!

Whilst reading about the arrival of a 'Zonkey' foal (a cross between a donkey and a zebra!) in South East China this morning, it got us thinking about diversity in the workplace.

Diversity and equality within the workplace is becoming more expected, especially of organisations within the public sector. It's often considered a minefield with some organisations not having a clue where they should start, which is why we've put together some ideas to get you started...

• Create a 'diversity calendar' - with a range of religions and ethnicity within the workplace, a good starting point for your organisation is to create a 'diversity calendar'. It will not only help the organisation keep track of annual cultural celebrations, but also it can help provide information on the celebrations and even allow organisations to organise events to highlight the celebrations. A 'diversity calendar' may also improve staff morale as it will show an organisation's respect for their employee's and their beliefs.

• Make use of creativity - Having employees from a wealth of different backgrounds and upbringing can only be beneficial for the organisation. It will provide the opportunity for creative ideas from all different angles of society. Tapping into the individual qualities of the personnel will encourage an organisation to grow and expand.

• Cost effective - Not only has research shown that an organisation with a diverse workforce suffers from lower absenteeism and employee turnover rates, but they are also less likely to come under threat from discrimination law suits.

• Encourages business - Just as an organisation is likely to come across diversity in the workplace, the organisations' external business dealings will also involve different ethnicities and cultures. If you promote diversity and equality in the workplace, your external business dealings will improve as a result.

At Housing Jobs, we promote diversity and equality by providing our clients with a platform whereby they can control and monitor their recruitment methods within a discrimination free process.

Finally, something to make you smile on a rainy Wednesday morning, view the video of the Zonkey foal here