Case Study
JD Wetherspoon
J D Wetherspoon is a pub company with more than 700 outlets throughout the UK. The company's customer base is very broad, a fact which it is keen to reflect in its workforce. Wetherspoon reviews its recruitment and retirement strategy; looking at where and how it advertises and taking changing demographics into account. Wetherspoon has taken the step of removing its retirement age, a move which ensures that it can retain valuable skills and experience and give staff the choice of working for longer. Says the recruitment manager; "Some people's perception of our industry is that it's a youth-oriented one, so while we were very good at employing students, we'd always struggled to attract applications from the older age bracket. We still get people ringing up saying, "I'm 45 - am I too old for a job as a manager?" and the answer is absolutely no way! It amazes me that some companies still put ages on job advertisements." The majority of frontline recruitment in the company is overseen by pub managers, and they have been trained to ensure that their recruitment practices do not discriminate on age. This includes the revision of all job specifications so that they are in line with good practice on age diversity and the re-writing of the company's interviewing skills course. Wetherspoon's job application forms do not ask for date of birth, and job descriptions at every level are based purely on skills and competencies. Wetherspoon has found it beneficial to attract diverse age ranges by offering flexible hours. This enables the employee to strike a balance between work and family or other commitments and the business to cover its core hours. For example, lunchtime is a particularly busy period for the company's outlets and it has found that some older workers - who might be looking to work for a few hours a week - are adaptable and happy to work