Retirement age is not a topic many business owners spend much time mulling over. The general assumption amongst most is that it’s the same as the pension age (now 66 in Ireland). The rationale behind this is understandable. After all, who wants to work any longer than they have to?
 
With this in mind, Irish businesses for years have included retirement clauses in their employment contracts, stipulating the end of a worker’s employment when they reach that golden number.
 
However, new legislation, passed back in December is changing all that. The Equality (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2015, which came into effect in January, makes a number of amendments to employment equality legislation. Most notable among these are the changes to the compulsory retirement age.
 
The net result of this is that to include a compulsory retirement clause, an employer must be able to objectively justify it. Retirement clauses in existing employment contracts will, for all intents and purposes, become void unless they adhere to this requirement. And in situations where no compulsory retirement age is set, employees will be entitled to work-on until they see fit to retire. Failure to comply with the amendments could see business owners being brought before the employment equality tribunal and the labour court for unfair dismissal.
 
The fact that we’re living longer, the cost of living is higher, we have more debts and a creaking Government Pension Fund mean more and more people are choosing to work past their pension age. This new legislation can be seen as a coup for equality campaigners, as it's not forcing people to work longer, but giving them the option to do so if they wish.
 
However, while greater equality is something all business should strive towards, the ramifications of this amendment for business owners and employers are quite serious. In businesses with no compulsory retirement age, or those that cannot objectively justify it, such issues may include:
 
Succession Planning Challenges
Motivated, driven, younger employees may quickly find themselves hitting a promotional ceiling where they can go no further until more senior, older members of the workforce decide to step down from their position.
 
The lack of a clear career path within an organisation may result in a business’s top talent leaving and joining competitor companies, where their ambitions can be realised. For smaller businesses, this could have a hugely detrimental impact.
 
Inability to Attract Talent
Running parallel to the issue above, is the challenge is attracting talent. Young professionals may end up shirking smaller businesses, or those with an ageing staff, for fear of stalling their career progression.
 
Reduced Productivity
For many who decide to continue working past retirement age, it will be because of the passion they have for the job they do. However, there will also be those who hang on, doing the bare minimum, just so they can claim their pay-cheque at the end of the month. The drain this could have on productivity, not to mention employee morale, is something employers need to give serious consideration to.
 
3 Steps to Protecting Your Business from Challenges

1. Ensure that a specific retirement age is clearly stated in employment contracts and this this age has been set in agreement with employees.
2. Provide an objective justification with the specified retirement age. These justifications must achieve a legitimate aim and be reasonable and proportionate in their application. Some examples of objective justification may be on the grounds of health and safety, intergenerational fairness and dignity (where issues of ability and under-performance might otherwise be brought into question).
3. Stipulate in the clause that the employer reserves the right to review the compulsory retirement age depending on the changing needs of the business.

 
Finally, employers must fully consider the repercussions of retaining an employee past the specified age of retirement. While there is nothing in the legislation to prevent an employer from offering a fixed term contract, provided it is objectively justified, it sets a precedent for other employees to challenge the normal age of retirement in the future.
 
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A happy office is a productive office. Research has found that when employers create a fun and happy workplace, there is a significant increase in the level of employee morale, trust, creativity and communication.

Employees are the greatest asset any company holds. As competition for the best talent continues to rise, holding onto them is only going to become more important and that means making sure they are happy in their work.

Here are 23 cost friendly ways you can keep your staff feeling energised and involved in your business.

1.Provide Healthy Snacks
Get a fruit bowl and fill it up with fruit. Not only will it add some colour to your office but it’s a far healthier option than a snack machine.

2.Encourage staff to use bikes to work
With the bike scheme just €20 for a year, why not treat all your staff? It’s a great way to boost motivation, encourage health and fitness, help staff get from A to B and do your part for the environment.

3.Yoga Wednesdays
Incorporate yoga classes for every week. Corporate activities are big business and gyms, such as Icon gym, have a wide range of company activities such as Yoga classes for your business. Studies have shown that yoga in the workplace can help reduce stress and anxiety, while boosting employee productivity.

4.Fancy Dress Day
A great way to build up the company morale is to have fancy dress days. Numerous companies in Ireland hold fancy dress days. Take for example LinkedIn. In addition to its Halloween fancy dress, it does a competition every year for the best dressed department. Not only does this help staff morale but it’s also great for team engagement.

5.Staff Night Out
Once a staple of the Irish working calendar, it got lost somewhere in the middle of the recession. A staff night out once a month is great for team building and for staff morale.

6.Come Dine with Me
Perhaps best suited to smaller companies. Encourage your staff to get involved in a ‘Come Dine with Me’ day, where once a month an employee makes lunch for everyone in the office.

7.Give every employee a birthday party
Make your employees feel appreciated on their birthday. There is nothing worse coming into work and nobody knowing it’s your birthday. Get them a cake, a present and get all the staff to write something.

8.Participate in a 5km Run
Get all the staff to participate in a 5km run and pay for the fee. You can make it even more worthwhile and collectively choose a charity you’d like to raise money for in the process.
 
9.Morning Raves
Get all the staff to go to a morning rave. This is a sober morning rave that begins at 6:30am and ends at 10:30am. It offers music, free messages, organic coffee, smoothie drinks & plenty bar. Can you think of a better way to get your morning started?

10.Free Company Gear
Give your staff the company gear that is given out at events such as pens, hats, food, etc. Investing in staff hoodies or jackets with the company logo on them, to keep them warm in the winter months, can also be a great idea. Get them wearing your brand with pride.

11.Party Fridays
Make Fridays a party day. In a study conducted by British Airways, it was found that motivation is at its lowest on Fridays after 2.39pm. With this information, it’s really the perfect time to let your staff start the weekend. Give them something to work towards on Friday before lunch, knowing that after lunch there will be drinks and pizza. This will be a great opportunity for staff to get to know their colleagues more in a casual environment. 

12.Provide Unlimited Coffee
This one speaks for itself…we all need our coffee, especially on Monday morning! 

​13.Have ‘Late Monday Day’
It might not completely expel the ‘Monday Blues’ every week, but knowing they can roll over in bed for another hour instead of sitting in traffic on their ‘Late Monday’ will certainly help!

14.Bring your dog to workday
In a study, employees who were around dogs in the workplace reported feeling less stressed than employees who have dogs but left them at home, according to researchers from Virginia Commonwealth University. Obviously, you should check that no one is allergic or afraid of our canine chums.

15.Allow staff one remote working day every month
Allow staff to work from home one day a month. This allows staff to cut out the long commutes to work, to spend more time with their family while working and to have less distraction. 

16.Share Good Customer Feedback to Staff
Be sure to share good customer feedback with staff to show the results of their good work. A good way of sharing the customer feedback to staff is to put it on a staff member board or set up a staff meeting on Monday. During the staff meeting, motivate the staff with the great customer feedback as this will be a great way to get staff motivated and back into the work mode for the rest of the week. If an employee has gone above and beyond, acknowledge their efforts in front of their team members.

17.Ask staff to share to share their success with their team
At the end of the day, get all the staff to gather in a group, with each staff member telling the group the best thing that they achieved today.

18.Employee of the Month
Show your appreciation for a staff members work over the course of a month by giving them a framed certificate ‘Employee of the Month’ and a voucher for their efforts.

19.Flexible Working Hours
Be flexible with working hours and allow staff to focus more on effectiveness. For example, if a staff member feels they work better later, tell them to come in at 10-6, rather than 9-5.

20.Put on the Music
Studies show that music improves mood, which can help boost productivity and creativity.

21.Place plants around the office
Introducing plants to an office environment has been reported to reduce absenteeism by up to 50%, and reduce minor illness by 30%. Reducing absence within the business not only maintains productivity, but will reduce the cost of absence year on year. Studies have also shown that plants help increase creativity and reduce stress.

22.New Staff Team Lunch
Make new staff in the company feel welcome by going out for a team lunch. It gives a great team feeling, gives everyone a chance to get to know the new staff member, while displacing some of those first day nerves.

23.Update the ‘About Us’ Page
Add the staff members that work in the company to the ‘about us’ page and include information about each staff member. In addition to making them feel more valued, it also demonstrates the level of talent your company has.

Sign up to our monthly newsletter now for tips on attracting and retaining your best employees, advice on dealing with those more complicated employment issues and all the latest HR news.

The HR Department has partnered with cloud based HRLocker to help SMEs across Ireland save time and money, while boosting productivity and employee engagement. 

The partnership will combine our traditional human resources consultancy with online, automated, administrative applications, providing businesses of all sizes with a full, affordable HR function, without the need for a dedicated HR manager.

Last year we conducted a survey of 400 Irish SMEs that found almost half (45%) of all Irish SMEs have no dedicated HR function. However, as the economy grows and businesses take on new staff, administrative pressures and employee issues are likely to increase. Considering that SME owners already spend between seven and 25 percent of their time buried under employee-related paper work, the impact of this could be significant.

By automating and managing all their HR administration online, from employee absence management and timesheets to recruitment and performance management to employee records and HR reporting, HRLocker helps employers significantly reduce the time and money spent on tedious administration so they can focus on growing their business. Additionally, as it is an online, cloud-based service, there are no expensive software costs or hardware legacy issues.

Meanwhile, The HR Department will continue to deliver outsourced consultative services to business owners, from employee wellness and personal development programmes to contracts and grievances, which can be married with HRLocker’s admin applications to streamline all HR activities and identify any employee challenges before they escalate.

Human resources continues to be a major issue for Irish businesses. In 2014, 4,162 cases were we referred to the employment appeals tribunal, and this year more than 260 cases have already been appealed.

David Bell, Managing Director of The HR Department, adds, “Many of the cases that go before the employment appeals tribunal could be prevented if businesses placed more emphasis on their human resources. In fact, employers that automate their HR find it easier to be compliant with NERA’s requirements. This partnership makes HR management a straight forward process that any small business can manage. HRLocker’s impressive client portfolio is testimony to its quality and we’re delighted to make it available to our customers.”
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To demonstrate just how effective HRLocker is, business owners can try it out absolutely free for 14 days by visiting http://login.hrlocker.com/account/register/1006