It is important to note that at no stage of the recruitment process, including your interview or during reference checks, will you be able to ask illegal questions. For example, just as you can`t ask a candidate about a disability during the interview, you can`t ask their former employer, “How many sick days did they take last year?” However, you can ask if they were reliable and punctual. The challenge for HR professionals is to create an employee selection system that is effective and beneficial, but also minimizes susceptibility to legal challenges. The following seven tips can help you assess the overall vulnerability of your employee selection processes. If necessary, consider revising procedures to reduce your company`s legal risk. Below is a list of the most important laws and regulations that affect the selection process. Before you recruit, make sure you are familiar with these rules: Improving employee selection can help you stay full – and avoid the courts. In addition to the general law that applies to each candidate, there are certain laws for certain groups of workers or certain professions. The recruitment and hiring of law students or lawyers is overseen by the National Association for Law Placement (NALP). Any company that has a union system should be aware of the National Labor Relations Board, an independent federal agency empowered to enforce the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). One possible source of negative effects is subjective evaluation. While instinct and intuition can be valuable aids in staff selection, unguided instinctive feelings about a candidate`s suitability are legally dangerous.
Subjective evaluations allow latent stereotypes and distortions to seep into the process. Such biases can lead to a negative perception and ultimately lead to the decision not to hire truly qualified candidates. Employee selection systems should be formalized and structured. While nothing prevents workers from suing for discrimination, there are mechanisms in the law to eliminate claims that simply have no chance of success – for example, when a complainant rejects the fundamental elements of her claim, i.e.: A prima facie case cannot prove. Summary judgment is the primary screening mechanism that employers can use to terminate such claims at the outset of litigation. Created by FindLaw`s team of writers and legal writers| Last updated December 10, 2018 While an audit of the type described above can take time and money, the exercise is worth it to increase employers` chances of asserting themselves early in future litigation or avoiding litigation altogether. Industry or organizational consultants and legal advisors can help you with this process. Employers have learned that it pays to be proactive rather than reactive.
Danny Kellman leads the Pre-Employment HR Metrics, Project Management and Sales team at the Human Capital Centre of Expertise (HUCACE), pronounced UKC. Check out the company`s blog here. Danny is a strategic HR professional and consultant with over 10 years of experience in various HR roles, combining and leveraging the right amount of science, technology and emotional intelligence in effective and efficient recruitment strategies for global brands. By providing meaningful scientific evidence, HUCACE helps HR professionals make informed decisions at the hiring stage. Even if you can demonstrate valid business reasons for using elements of your personnel selection system that harm members of a protected class, you should still look for other selection methods that are just as valid but have less discriminatory effects. The wording of the job posting, whether in a newspaper or on a job portal, must be carefully drafted. It should not promote a person`s race, colour, religion, sexual orientation or even political beliefs. This situation is monitored by the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).
It is illegal to discriminate against an applicant on the basis of any of these factors. Some of the other parameters are gender, age and disability. The EEOC also protects employees and candidates from: When making a formal job offer to a candidate, ensure that the payment offered is strictly based on the skills and responsibilities required for the position. In companies that have a union, wages are often calculated according to seniority or quantity/quality of production. It should not be based on any of the above-mentioned discriminatory parameters. The U.S. Department of Labor regulates legal issues related to the wage structure, including minimum wage, overtime pay, and severance pay. Your company`s HR managers need to be aware of this. Most small businesses don`t have a formal HR department. You can contact one of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission`s small business partners and answer any questions you may have.
Ask yourself: Are you legally employable in the United States? Can you speak/write English fluently? What languages do you speak besides English? The legal risks associated with hiring systems can be particularly high now that unemployment rates are relatively high. When there were many job opportunities, workers who had not been mistaken for a job opportunity had much less incentive to ask why or to take legal action. After all, another job – maybe better – was probably around the corner. Now that the economy has slowed and jobs are no longer plentiful, workers may be more likely to wonder why they weren`t hired – and to look for legally binding causes. From Lockridge and similar cases, it is clear that employers with formal and structured employee selection systems will have an easier time resolving lawsuits brought by non-plaintiffs. In other words, employers who do not structure their job selection systems can expose themselves to unnecessarily costly litigation not only from workers and applicants, but also from people who have never applied for a job. Employers who maintain formal and structured employee selection systems – even if these systems involve subjective assessments – will be in a better position than employers who do not. Therefore, employers should review their existing procedures and consider changes if necessary. This audit should cover the entire staff selection process, including internal and leased assessment centres. When deficiencies are identified, practices should be modified to reduce the employer`s vulnerability to legal liability. At the beginning of the recruitment process, it is important to be aware of certain legal issues in order to minimize risks. Job postings, interview questions, reference reviews, and job posting all need to be done in a way that meets legal requirements.
Regardless of the formal or structured degree of worker selection systems, and despite the lack of intent, employers can be held liable if their practices adversely affect candidates in a legally protected category. There is prima facie evidence of adverse effects when the selection rate for a protected group is less than 80% of the rate for the most frequently selected group.