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Anti-ageism battle reaches the shop floor 22 November 2005 The Employers Forum on Age (EFA) launches a major communications campaign, Age Aware, this week in conjunction with its 200+ members. Age Aware is designed to encourage people to recognise discrimination and their own ageist attitudes in a bid to challenge our ageist workplace culture. The Age Aware campaign includes a raft of flexible communication materials to help employers inform and discuss imminent age discrimination laws with their staff while demonstrating their commitment to weeding out ageism. The materials, which can be customised to fit in with any organisations' branding and tone, include posters, fliers, and intranet banners. In contrast to the usual tactics HR takes to employment legislation, the new campaign takes a fun and colourful approach to the age debate. The EFA hopes the controversial slogans will stimulate conversations about ageism amongst employees within some of the UK's leading companies. Catherine Webb, HR Controller in Planning, Coca-Cola Enterprises Ltd is the first EFA member to implement the campaign, and comments: 'Age laws may prove a 'minefield', but tackling entrenched attitudes and ageist assumptions will be the biggest battle. The materials put together by EFA create a great platform for us to get employees talking frankly about the age issue, and I believe they will really make people sit up and take notice of the imminent age legislation.' Sam Mercer, director of EFA, adds: 'We've got a long way to go to put age on a par with race or sex discrimination. By using materials with slogans like "We're all old enough to know better" or "right age/ wrong reason", the Age Aware campaign is about enabling employers to communicate the new laws in an engaging way to initiate culture change.' For further information please contact Lizzie Barrett or Sarah Williams at CHA on 020 7622 8252. back to the archive |
