Good Essay About Age Discrimination

In an effort to reduce costs across the board, Pilchard wishes to hire recent graduates of MBA programs who have little experience. His firm would be paying them above competitive salaries even if it offered them one-half the salaries of its present staff members who are over age 40. Should Pilchard terminate the older employees in favour of the younger, less expensive workers? What if one or more of the older employees were willing to accept a 50-percent pay cut? Can Pilchard make the 50-percent pay cut a condition on older employees for the remaining employed.
In most countries the rights of employees are protected. Employees are protected from exploitation from their employers. Pilchard should not terminate the employment of the older employees in favour of the less expensive workers because this is prohibited by law. In the United States of America for example, there is the Age Discrimination in Employment Act which prohibits this. It is stated that employers should not fire employees based on their age. Pilchard should not fire the older employees for the younger, less expensive ones because some of those employees have good skills in certain aspects of the job which the new employees may not have. This may lead to the business failing because of lack of skilled staff.
Pilchard should not terminate the employment of the older employees because with experience comes good skills at the work place. Those employees who have been at the work place for a long period of time have mastered the art of the job and are better skilled in doing some work just because they have been at the work place for a longer period of time. The older employees are also able to do the work with ease and in a short time because of the experience they have. In addition, Pilchard should not fire the older employees in favour of the younger, less expensive ones because it would reflect badly on the business. Ethics is very important in businesses and publicity is everything hence the firm should avoid negative publicity at all cost.
Pilchard cannot make the 50-percent pay cut a condition for the older employees because it is not allowed by law. The law states that a person’s salary should not be determined by their age. If Pilchard makes the 50-percent pay cut a condition, this will likely reduce the morale of the employees. For a business to perform well, the employees should be motivated. If the employees are not motivated, their performance may not be good hence leading to poor performance of the firm.
Pilchard cannot make the 50-percent pay cut for the older employees because its scale for being a good employer would drop. Businesses that are good employers are likely to attract a wide range of hopeful potential employees. If Pilchard is known to be a hostile employer, less people would be willing to work there hence denying the firm a wide range of talented and qualified potential employees.
Pilchard should not make the remuneration of its employees to be determined by the age of the employees. Instead of using age, the rubrics grading system should be used. This grading system allows employers to assess the skills of their employees. The assessment is usually for few skills at a time. The employees are informed of the tasks and the scoring guide used so as to establish clear expectations.
Some of the advantages of using the rubrics grading criteria are that the skills of the employees are evaluated so as to ensure the right employee is doing the right task and that it enables the employers to give reasons why certain employees are promoted and explain their pay scale. The rubrics grading criteria also enables the employees know their strengths and weaknesses.
In conclusion, age should not be a factor in determining the pay of employees and other grading systems should be used instead.