You need to worry about them if you employ anyone at all. They affect every area of employment - recruitment and selection, training and promotion, terms and conditions, and the whole of the retirement process. They not only make it unlawful to discriminate on grounds of age, directly and indirectly, but also to harass anyone intentionally or unintentionally (by subjecting them to behaviour which violates their dignity, or creates an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment), or to victimise them (by treating them adversely because they have complained or assisted someone else in complaining about their treatment on grounds of age).
This being the case, you need to worry not only about your own proceedings, but also those of your employees, who must be deterred (by disciplinary process if necessary) from making offensive or hurtful cracks about youth, age, or anything in between.
As with other areas of discrimination, if an employee can prove that there has been a difference in treatment which is probably due to discrimination, it will be up to you as employer to prove otherwise - or at least, to demonstrate that you have done everything possible to stamp such discrimination out. Since there is no limit to discrimination awards, and they often include an element for hurt feelings, failure to do so could be expensive.
