Editor's message: Since the abolition of the default retirement age, most employees are free to retire when they choose. Where a compulsory retirement age is necessary, you must be able to demonstrate that your organisation’s retirement age is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.
With an ageing workforce in the UK, employers may be faced with more employees continuing to work for financial reasons. However, you need to balance valuing experience and maintaining productivity against employees becoming a financial burden and blocking opportunities for younger staff.
Some employers assist the transition to retirement by offering flexible hours and increasing wellbeing benefits. However, you should avoid making stereotypical assumptions about older workers’ abilities, performance or future intention to reduce their hours.
Zuraida Curtis, employment law editor
Updated to highlight the employment tribunal decision in Pitcher v University of Oxford on having an employer-justified retirement age.
Updated to highlight the employment tribunal decision in Pitcher v University of Oxford on having an employer-justified retirement age.
In Pitcher v Chancellor, Masters and Scholars of the University of Oxford and another, an employment tribunal held that Oxford University's "employer-justified retirement age" for academics is a proportionate means of achieving its legitimate aims.
Updated to take account of the General Data Protection Regulation, in force from 25 May 2018.
Updated to take account of the General Data Protection Regulation, in force from 25 May 2018.
Updated to take account of the General Data Protection Regulation, in force from 25 May 2018.
Updated to take account of the General Data Protection Regulation, in force from 25 May 2018.
The Court of Appeal has held that the decision to reduce officer head count "to the fullest extent" by forcibly retiring police officers with 30 years' service was justified.
In Chief Constable of West Midlands Police and others v Harrod and others [2015] IRLR 790 EAT, the EAT held that the employment tribunal erred in holding that the indirect age discrimination that arose from the application of reg.A19 of the Police Pensions Regulations 1987 was unjustified.
HR and legal information and guidance relating to retirement.
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