Age Appreciation Staff Group

Mission and values  

Age is often a forgotten protected characteristic, and issues and concerns around age and aging in the workplace can be difficult to address.

The Age Appreciation Group (AAG) will:  

• Champion the voices of those within the organisation who experience or observe age discrimination  
• Highlight the organisation’s obligations under the Equality Act 2010  
• Raise awareness of issues faced by staff members in various parts of the employment life cycle from early career to retirement.  

Principles

• Advocate 
• Celebrate 
• Collaborate 
• Career Development
• Wellbeing  

Membership and meetings  

The network has regular meetings about every 6 weeks run in a blended format. Any staff member from any job family with any contract type (based on Loughborough or London campuses) can join at any time and can attend a meeting at any time. There is no formal expectation of meeting attendance, other than for officers of the network. Officer positions are open to anyone, elected by members of the network (those on the current mailing list). The term of office will normally be 2 years. The Committee will be as diverse as possible in terms of age and other protected characteristics, as well as representative of the job families and levels across the university.  

Activities  

• Collaboration with other University networks  
• A focus on health-related issues, and their impact on working lives, including menopause  
• Retirement – lack of support to be addressed 
• Ageism regarding career development 

Get involved 

Dr Catherine Armstrong, Reader in Modern History and Director of People and Culture in the School of Social Sciences and Humanities, is leading the relaunch and would like to hear from colleagues who may be interested in shaping the staff group.  

If you’re interested in age as a protected characteristic and want to make a difference at the University, please get in touch. Many hands make light work, and the group will aim to create as diverse a membership as possible, in terms of age profile, protected characteristics, and jobs roles within the organisation.