Equality & Inclusion: A Case Study on Age Discrimination in Workplace

This case study analyzes an incident of age discrimination experienced by an accountant, Mrs. Bella William, who was pressured to retire due to her age. The incident, which occurred in the finance department, was deemed unethical and a violation of the Equality Act 2010, leading to emotional distress and potential legal action. The study explores the implications of such discrimination, including its impact on employee morale, company image, and legal liabilities. It references the Equality Act 2010 and equal opportunity policies as legal frameworks to address the issue. The study concludes that organizations must enforce policies that protect employees from discrimination and that employees should be aware of their rights and encouraged to report discriminatory practices. Recommendations include seeking compensation and raising awareness among other women about their rights, emphasizing the importance of equal rights and opportunities for all employees, regardless of age, religion, or sexual orientation.

EQUALITY, DIVERSITY& INCLUSION IN SOCIETY AND ORGANISATION (EDI)
PROJECT TWO – RESOURCE MEMO
What’s the story about?
At my workplace I have observed the case of age discrimination which was highly unethical situation
making an employee feel uncomfortable and embarrassed. My friend Mrs. Bella William is an
accountant at the respective workplace from last 25 years and has worked for this organisation for
her entire life. But, currently the manager of the company came to Bella and told that he wished
that Bella should “hurry up and retire” because she is old in age and there are too many young
women working in the organisation. I was unable to believe those words as it made Mrs. Bella feel
mocked for her age and also questioned her years of experience and efforts in the firm making her
feel that her work and efforts has not valuable contribution to the firm. This incident completely
sounded as an age discrimination. This incident was happened in the finance department of my
organisation that manages the company's financial activities such as budgets, outflow and inflow of
cash, daily accounts etc.
The manager didn't realize that the firm has violated the law of discrimination in terms of age,
gender and also the case was spiral as bully due to the age. Bella was suggested to take her incident
to the commission for the justice and compensation. Also Bella Williams took this step to make such
activity stop in organisation so that no other person has to suffer same in future.
What lesson does it teach?
From the above narrated incident it was identified that this incident was resulted into the case of
bullying and emotional injury. As the Mrs. Bella William is one of the highly experienced and asset
for the firm as the accountant. When the incident happened the Bella was highly disappointed,
angry and uncomfortable as she expects and thought as an asset to the firm rather she was mocked
for the age. This mocking incident caused the emotional injury to the Bella and also is happened as a
case of bullying to the Bella for her older age than the other women's in the office. There was no
justified reason for the happening of such incident with Bella as this was highly unfair and
unprofessional of the manager to told such thing to Bella. This lend the organisation into the legal
considerations as Bella filed the case of age discrimination and inequality. This has negative impact
on the organisation as company was losing one of the key employee, has to pay financial
compensation for their misbehaviour and the complaint also damaged the company's image
(Harada and et. al., 2019). This has also impacted the women employee performance within the
organisation as the employees were in support of the Bella. Also facing the lawsuit degrades the
company's image and lowers the company rating in the market among the customers.

What evidence (Laws, Principles, Organisational guideline) can be used to support or address the
inequality issues raised in your story
To address this situation of the Mrs Bella Williams the Equality Act 2010 introduced by the UK
government is to protect against the discrimination in the workplace and the society. This respective
law covers the different types of discrimination such as race, religion, sex, age or disability. For the
current incident narrated above the sex discrimination is the case that will be addresses by this
Equality Act 2010 (Hankivsky, De Merich, and Christoffersen, 2019). under this law there is
provision that age discrimination is ban is against the adults in the provision of service in
organisation. As per this law the age discrimination is illegal and unlawful and is matter of
punishment if occurred. Thus, this law will protect the Mrs. Bella rights and make the manger and
organisation council pay for its actions.
Also, to address this issue Mrs. Bella take support of the Equal opportunity policy of the UK
organisations that aims to improve the workplace life of the older age people (Numhauser-
Henning, 2018). This policy provides freedom to the employees to gain equal opportunities
regardless of the age, race, religion, sex etc. through this policy Bella showed that age discrimination
and victimisation through bullying is unacceptable and legal actions are taken against of the people
that conduct such activities for their personal fun.
There was same incident on the online website written as an article about the women named Trish
that talks about her own story of age discrimination in the office (Trish’s story, 2022). In that the
incident was explained through Equal Opportunity Act and the issue was resolved through the
organisation procedure. The women contacted the organisation commission and conducted a
meeting with manager where a manger apologised for the actions and also they agreed on paying
some financial compensation to the women.
Conclusion and Recommendations
It is evaluated form the above situation that women's and the old age employees in the organisation
are often the victims of different discriminations. In this particular incident along with the age
discrimination there was also the sex discrimination which was not recognised. Also the step taken
by Bella was strong and correct to compliant against the manager’s action with the help of the law
in order to acquire justice and to restrict such happening again in future. It is concluded that Bella
has inspired many other women staff to speak for their rights and never accept bully or
discrimination.
It is recommended to the Bella that she should also aware the other women's in the society and
should ask for the compensation for the act. It is recommended to the Bella after such incident that
she must show other in the organisation her value and contribution in the organisational success.
Thus, it is concluded that in an organisation every employee contains equal rights and opportunities
despite of their religion, sexual orientation, disabilities, age, race, etc. employers must improvise the
legal policies and principles to protect the employees from discrimination. Every employee must
stand against the wrong happening and should be aware of their legal rights.

References
Hankivsky, O., De Merich, D. and Christoffersen, A., 2019. Equalities ‘devolved’:
experiences in mainstreaming across the UK devolved powers post-equality act 2010. British
Politics, 14(2), pp.141-161.
Harada, K., Sugisawa, H., Sugihara, Y., Yanagisawa, S. and Shimmei, M., 2019. Perceived
age discrimination and job satisfaction among older employed men in Japan. The
International Journal of Aging and Human Development, 89(3), pp.294-310.
Numhauser-Henning, A., 2018. Ageism, age discrimination and employment law in the EU.
In Ageing, Ageism and the Law. Edward Elgar Publishing.
Trish’s story, 2022[Online].Available through
<https://www.humanrights.vic.gov.au/get-help/stories/trishs-story/>