Research carried out for Doyle Clayton, specialist employment law and discrimination solicitors, reveals that Generation Y employees have the most negative attitudes towards older employees and part-time and flexible workers. In addition, micro businesses are Britain’s least discriminatory workplaces and mid-sized businesses are where you are most likely to experience discrimination at work, at least that’s the view of their employees.
Our Age Before Beauty? Report considers these findings in greater detail, explores possible reasons for the findings and what employers can do to address the problem.
Key finding include:
- In micro businesses (1-9 employees), 97% of employees do not consider they have experienced discrimination on grounds of sex and 96% feel that age discrimination has never been an issue;
- In medium sized (50 – 249) and larger businesses, 10% of employees felt they had been held back due to their sex (compared to 1.3% in micro businesses and 4.5% in small businesses (10-40 employees))
- In medium-sized and large businesses over 20% of employees had witnessed discrimination on grounds of age, whereas in micro businesses virtually no employee interviewed had witnessed it;
- 20% of employees at medium sized and large businesses view colleagues who work flexibly as less committed, whereas employees at micro businesses were consistently more positive; and
- Generation Y have the most discriminatory attitude toward flexible working and older workers.
Doyle Clayton Solicitors’ market research looks at age and gender discrimination and attitudes of employees towards colleagues who work flexibly.
The Report’s findings are based on interviews with 1,000 employees across a range of organisations.
To download a copy of the report click here.
