HR & Compliance Centre conference on managing retirement

The HR & Compliance Centre conference on Managing retirement will explore the issues affecting employers as a result of the abolition of the default retirement age and transferable lessons from those who operate without a compulsory age. 

To help you make the most of the conference, we highlight just some of the material on this subject available on HR & Compliance Centre. 

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Pre-retirement support

How pre-retirement courses can ease employee departures This article outlines how pre-retirement courses can help ease the retirement process and provide a valuable employee benefit. 

Longstanding pre-retirement course brings rewards at NERC A retirement planning course offered by the Natural Environment Research Council is highly valued by employees, and has helped to encourage take-up of partial retirement. 

BT's planning for retirement course guides employees through pension maze A half-day pre-retirement course offered by BT to employees from the age of 50 has helped shift attitudes towards retirement among participants. 

2010 retirement procedures survey: employers want to retain retirement age Research on the default age finds that three-quarters of employers surveyed have retained a contractual retirement age and the same number do not wish to see it abolished or raised above 65. 

Employment law manual: retirement

The HR & Compliance Centre employment law manual provides comprehensive and up-to-date guidance on the law on retirement and alerts you to forthcoming changes to the law, via the Future developments subsection, a feature of all the employment law manual sections. The manual also sets out the law relating to age discrimination and justification. 

Default retirement age to be abolished The HR & Compliance Centre forthcoming law section summarises how the abolition of the default retirement age will be implemented and how its abolition will impact employers. It also rounds up other resources on HR & Compliance Centre on this topic. 

Default retirement age proposals: 10 things employers need to know Default retirement age proposals: 10 things employers need to know by Stephen Simpson. The abolition of the default retirement age is going to have a huge impact on how employers operate their businesses. The Government has already committed to removing the default retirement age, which allows employers to require employees to retire at the age of 65 or over provided that the statutory retirement procedure is followed. 

Abolition of the default retirement age: overview Elizabeth Stevens of Steeles (Law) LLP begins a series of articles on the abolition of the default retirement age with an overview. The default retirement age allows employers to force employees to retire at the age of 65, provided that they follow a statutory procedure. The Government has confirmed its plans to abolish the default retirement age, from 1 October 2011. 

Outlook video: abolition of the default retirement age HR & Compliance Centre's head of content Jo Stubbs and group editor David Shepherd discuss the Government's proposals on retirement, under which, from 6 April 2011, employers will no longer be able to rely on the default retirement age to maintain a compulsory retirement age for their workforce. 

Remember, if you come across an article on HR & Compliance Centre that you want to draw to the attention of a colleague, every article has a link to the right of the screen enabling you to "email this item to a colleague". Click on the link, enter the email address of your colleague, and press send. Your colleague will receive the document in full, making this an ideal tool when delegating work. Alternatively, you can email the article to yourself as a reminder. 

XpertHR's FAQs section provides answers to commonly asked questions on a wide range of topics. Questions on retirement include:

• What is the expected timetable for the abolition of the default retirement age?
• Will there be transitional arrangements for the abolition of the default retirement age?
• How will employers deal with retirement after the abolition of the default retirement age?
• Will employers still be able to operate a compulsory retirement age after the abolition of the default retirement age?
• Will anything replace the current statutory retirement procedure after the abolition of the default retirement age?
• Will the statutory retirement procedure be repealed when the default retirement age is abolished?
• After the abolition of the default retirement age, how should employers deal with employees over 65 who are underperforming?
• How will the abolition of the default retirement age affect employers that have a compulsory retirement age of 65?
• After the abolition of the default retirement age, employers will have to justify objectively having a compulsory retirement age. What does this mean?
• How will the abolition of the default retirement age affect employment tribunal claims in relation to retirement?

We welcome suggestions for new FAQs from our subscribers, so if there's a question that you would like to see answered on the site, use the Suggest tab in the FAQs section to submit your idea. 

However, if you have a particular query and wish to receive an individual response to it within a short timeframe, you should make use of the Legal Advice section of the site (within Employment Law in the left-hand toolbar). You can telephone or email your question to be answered by a specialist employment lawyer. 

Keep up with the latest developments in employment case law and check key legal precedents. Recently reported retirement cases include:

EAT doubts current orthodoxy that cost alone cannot justify age discrimination
The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has questioned the current approach adopted by tribunals that an employer cannot justify age discrimination on the ground of cost alone. 

Retirement age of 55 for BA employees not discriminatory
The EAT held that cost alone will not justify the imposition of a discriminatory provision, criterion or practice, but may be one of the factors taken into account in the balancing exercise. 

For up-to-the-minute news on key cases that have not yet been reported elsewhere on HR & Compliance Centre, see the HR & Compliance Centre stop press. 

Model policies and documents

The HR & Compliance Centre policies and documents section provides a range of documents relevant to retirement:

• Retirement contract clause
• Retirement policy and procedure
• Letter inviting an employee to attend a meeting to discuss his or her request not to retire on the intended date of retirement

Retirement case studies

Find out through HR & Compliance Centre case studies how other organisations are supporting people with disabilities and promoting equal treatment for them. Recent case studies look at:

• how Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, recognised the importance of adapting its employment practices to the needs of an ageing workforce, implementing a flexible retirement policy; 
• the flexible retirement scheme at Yorkshire Water that enables older workers to go part-time and draw part of their pension; and
• how the Department for Work and Pensions went about removing its compulsory retirement age. 

You can receive email updates every time new articles about disability are published on HR & Compliance Centre. 

Click on the My XpertHR link on the homepage and select the "Preferences" tab. Simply follow the instructions to set your update preferences and make sure that you're kept informed of all the latest information we publish on your chosen topics. Select "retirement" to ensure that you're kept up to date with developments relating to retirement.