Retirement Age and Rehiring as a Consultant - want to make a policy on employee retirement for private port staff based in Maharashtra

Dear HR,

I want to establish a policy on employee retirement for private port staff based in Maharashtra. I would like to address the following points:
1) What is the retirement age for port staff working in the field?
2) For how many years can we extend their retirement by considering the physical and mental condition of the employee?
3) Can we transition port field staff into a consultant role? If so, what would be the maximum age for a consultant?

Kindly assist me in resolving the above queries.

Normally, there is no age restriction for any kind of employees in a private establishment. However, in order to bring a uniform pattern for all the employees, companies follow some retirement age, which may be 58 or 60. There can also be a provision in the policy that, depending upon the requirements, the retirement age of an employee shall be extended. It is important to maintain uniformity in approach so that antagonism against an employee or a particular class of employees should not be established. It is common for management not to extend the retirement of a worker who has been actively involved in a trade union or who has always been against the management. Similarly, there should not be an incident where an employee with a poor attendance record demands an extension of the retirement age. Therefore, the policy should grant the management the sole right to decide whether an employee should be given an extension or not.

An employee can be given service extension with all service benefits. There is no issue in it. However, when you do extend service, the payment of retirement benefits like Gratuity will be postponed, but the amount of gratuity would increase because it would be calculated considering the length of service after retirement as well. Therefore, it is common to settle the gratuity, leave surrender, etc., on the date of superannuation itself and rehire the employee as a fresh employee.

There is no need to rehire an employee as a 'consultant.' A consultant provides professional services, which a worker does not. Moreover, a consultant will not come to your plant daily and remain there like other workers. A consultant will not mark attendance or apply for leave when needing absence from work. Therefore, rehiring a worker as a consultant is not appropriate. Instead, you can provide them employment with all statutory benefits for a fixed period, say two years. By statutory benefits, I mean a salary not less than the statutory minimum fixed by the government, ESI if the wages are less than Rs 21,000, leave with wages, and other benefits. If the worker receives a pension from the EPF, they can be excluded from PF.