February 2012
Putting lawyers in touch with the youth of Oldham
Pearson Hinchliffe partner, Michael Pitt, takes over as 2012 Oldham Law Association President.
MoreAre the age police scouring your company’s job advertisements?
5th January 2009
Are the age police scouring your company’s job advertisements? By Michael Pitt, Employment Law partner.
Let me explain. It is possible that people with no intention of applying for a job with your organisation are looking through your recruitment ads to see if they fall foul of legislation outlawing ageism.
If they can persuade a tribunal that they were put off applying for the job by a discriminatory advertisement – and provided it did not emerge in evidence that they never intended to apply for the vacancy – the tribunal may decide to award them compensation.
The same could happen over job adverts that seem to indicate an intention to discriminate unlawfully on grounds of race, sex, disability, religion or sexual orientation.
Examples of discriminatory advertisements could be ones stating that an applicant must be above or below a particular age, or have a fixed amount of experience, where the age restriction or demand for experience cannot be objectively justified.
That means that employers who specifically need to attract people over or under a certain age, or with a certain amount of experience, must work out carefully, on a case by case basis, why this is so for a particular role.
Most obviously, an airline requiring flight captains would be within its rights to stipulate that applicants must have a certain number of flying hours behind them. But experience could equally be necessary for a host of other jobs.
The key is for employers to create a paper trail to show that they have thought about the type of person they want and concluded that there is no less discriminatory way to achieve the same result. This could include, for example, evidence of them regularly reviewing all their policies and procedures to make sure there is no bias against the young or old.
With such evidence behind them, employers should be immune from threats from bona fide applicants who were unsuccessful in securing the job, as well as from unscrupulous members of the public who never intended to make a serious job application in the first place.
Click here to contact a specialist employment lawyer.
Notes to Editors
Pearson Hinchliffe Commercial Law is a commercial law practice providing a range of legal services to business and commercial clients in Manchester, Oldham and across the North West. The firm's specialities include Company & Commercial, Employment Law, Commercial Litigation and Commercial Property matters.
As one of the leading law firms in the North of England, Pearson Hinchliffe’s mission is to be ‘the complete law firm’ providing the highest quality legal services to its clients. It does this by offering practical and cost effective, high quality legal advice for a wide range of clients. Each client is catered for as an individual with their business and personal requirements taken into account which allows for a highly personalised service.
For more information on this article or Pearson Hinchliffe Commercial Law, please contact a member of the marketing communications team on +44 (0)161 785 3500 or email muhammed.shaikh@pearson-hinchliffe.co.uk
January 2012
Company and commercial law reforms to reduce red tape
Companies of all shapes and sizes have been asked for their views on how to tackle unnecessary bureaucracy in company and commercial law.
MoreJanuary 2012
Increase in unfair dismissal qualifying period will apply only to new employees
From 6 April 2012 the qualifying period of service for making a claim increases from one to two years.
MoreJanuary 2012
Maximum compensation for unfair dismissal increases from 1 February 2012
Annual revision of employment tribunal award limits and other amounts payable under employment legislation.
MoreDecember 2011
Health and safety laws to be cut by half
Government plans to slash health and safety red tape will mean substantial savings for small firms, business groups have said.
MoreNovember 2011
Weight Watchers case: the importance to employers of employment status.
The Upper Tier Tribunal holds 1,700 ‘leaders’ at Weight Watchers were employees for tax purposes.
MoreSeptember 2011
How to Conduct a Disciplinary Hearing
A recent presentation by Employment solicitor, Susan Mayall, setting out the stages for handling a disciplinary, referencing the ACAS Code of Conduct.
June 2011
ACAS Advice leaflet “Holidays and Holiday Pay”
Download the guidance covering arrangements for holidays and holiday pay.
October 2010
Recent Case Study: Commercial Landlord and Tenant - An Authorised Guarantee Agreement
Authorised Guarantee Agreements keep the original tenant on the hook in case a third party assignee defaults; they should be drafted with care.
July 2010
Recent Case Study: Doing Battle in the Boardroom
How Pearson Hinchliffe Commercial Law helped members of the Board of Directors achieve the outcome they sought in their boardroom dispute with a senior executive director.
May 2010
How the Mergers & Acquisitions team helped Lanes Group PLC achieve their LAS sell-off
Drainage specialists dispose £12.3 million majority stake in Lanes Assistance Services.
March 2010
PH Employment Direct
The Employment team at Pearson Hinchliffe Commercial Law have created PH Employment Direct - a user-friendly and simple service that gives you access to the best advice at the end of a phone 24hrs a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
February 2010
Oldham Construction Sector
On 3 February 2010 Corporate Commercial partner Roger Hinchliffe delivered a presentation entitled, ‘Joint Ventures’ to the Oldham Construction Sector group.
January 2010
Debt Recovery Service
With our specialist commercial Debt Recovery service you can significantly increase the speed and likelihood of recovering the money owed to your business.