What is the current default retirement age?

What is the current default retirement age?

I ask this during my presentations quite a bit, and get A LOT of different answers, with “65” being the most common

The real answer?  There isn’t one. It was abolished in October 2011, with a short transition period where you were allowed to give your employees six months’ notice of retirement.

That concluded in 2012.

What does that mean for you as an employer?

Quite a bit as it happens.

Most obviously, it means there is no “retirement” anymore.  The only way people leave is to resign.

You can’t wait for that awkward member of staff to retire, because there’s no guarantee they will.

You can’t put off managing a poor performer because they haven’t got long left, because you’ve got no idea whether they will.

However old your staff member is, if they’re not performing, they need managing.

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Failing at Dismissal

Failing at Dismissal

We’ve had a few clients failing at the “dismissal stage” recently.

Each one for exactly the same thing – not telling us that they KNEW the employee had long term mental health issues.

As the saying goes – the truth will out, and it always does, just as soon as the employee contacts ACAS Early Conciliation.

Then it comes to us, we see what’s being claimed by the employee, and end up having an uncomfortable conversation with the client, who’s clearly conveniently ignored what they KNEW about the employee’s mental health.

Why?

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The metaphorical unicorn that this employee never saw

The metaphorical unicorn that this employee never saw. I was talking to a friend the other day, and she was probing me about human resources-related stuff (occupational hazard!). One of the things she was keen to know was whether there was a legal requirement for an employer to have a handbook that they gave to … Read more

The Goldilocks Principle (and rats!)

The Goldilocks Principle (and rats!)

Last month, my daughter saw a rat.

She was in our (very messy) garage with our miniature schnauzer Comet, and it scuttled right in front of them.

Comet successfully ignored generations of breeding and let the rat go, choosing to focus on a manky tennis ball instead.

Luckily, one of our clients specialises in pest extermination, so – after witnessing Comet’s failure – we called out Vermatech and they arrived the next day.

Three weeks later the rats were gone, and we were under no illusions about how they’d got into the garage – the old wooden door frame, which clearly needed replacing without delay.

I contacted three companies – two from Checkatrade, and one via recommendation.

All three came round.  All were likeable, knowledgeable, could provide what I wanted – a grey anthracite roller door – and could do it for about the same price and in the same time frame.

I was dreading getting the quotes and having to make a choice because they were all so similar – how was I going to make the choice?!

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