Unfortunately, discrimination has become a popular term in our society. We face it in everyday life, as well as in the workplace. However, it shouldn’t be so. The government is taking measures and working out initiatives to eliminate discrimination and promote equality. If a company fails to adhere to law and regulations, it may face severe legal consequences.
One way to avoid them is to hire an employment lawyer. You can do it on a site like mosheslaw.com. Another one is to study the rules on your own and implement them in corporate policies. Today every enterprise – big or small – need to introduce a non-discrimination policy. Let’s discuss discrimination in hiring and how to avoid it.
Why Avoid Discrimination in Hiring?
According to a survey conducted by CV-Library, 30% of professionals have been turned down from a job because of their age. That’s an example of discrimination in recruiting. This is illegal according to the Equality Act 2010. The act states that it’s unlawful to discriminate against people due to certain characteristics or situations. There are nine characteristics – they are also referred to as “protected characteristics”:
- Age
- Disability
- Civil partnership and marriage
- Gender reassignment
- Maternity and pregnancy
- Belief and religion
- Race
- Sexual orientation
- Sex
Usually, when speaking about discrimination, it’s implied that it happens against minorities. In other words, a company rejects a candidate because of his/her age, color, religion, etc. Sometimes, the situation is vice versa. A person is offered a position because he belongs to a minority group. An example of racism in hiring is when an Afro-American owner hires Afro-Americans only. This is called reverse discrimination.
Discrimination in hiring delivers no benefit to the company. There are three reasons for that:
- Legal consequences – As we have already discussed it, discrimination may lead to problems with the law. This negatively impacts your financial state. You will need to hire a lawyer and may cover a fine.
- Loss of talent – Color, beliefs, marital status don’t shape a person’s experience and skills. Therefore, your prejudices may cost you a talented, skillful specialist. Apart from that, it’s proved that diversity staffing is beneficial for a company’s profitability.
- Damaged HR-brand – HR issues and activities make up an HR-brand or company’s reputation in the labor market. A good HR-brand increases your attractiveness to existing and potential employees. Lack of diversity in the workplace may significantly undermine it.
As you can see, discrimination negatively affects your reputation, finance, and even profitability. Prejudices in favor of or against people with certain characteristics not only undermine the idea of equality but also cost a business a lot.
Five Rules to Talent Searching
An equal working environment begins with a diversity hire. It’s vital to remain professional and impartial when shortlisting candidates and making a final decision. The ultimate rule is to conduct a record of all your activities. Besides this, here are the top 5 recruitment best practices:
1. Establish a Set of Criteria
When hiring for a particular position, you should have a clear understanding of a candidate you are looking for. The ultimate solution is to work out a standard set of criteria. What we mean is that you should define what skills and experience a candidate needs.
This is beneficial not only in terms of preventing discrimination. Another advantage is that you will focus on expertise when hiring; therefore, the chances of choosing a required talent are higher.
The principle is simple. I If you are looking for a sales representative, a candidate must have strong people skills and proven sales experience. If you are searching for an app developer, a candidate must know the required programming languages and have a portfolio.
2. The Job Advert Should Adhere to a Non-Discriminatory Policy
A non-discriminatory policy may vary from company to company. What we mean here is that, first of all, you should advertise widely. Don’t public your job advert only in limited locations that you like most of all. Provide the opportunity to send you an application for everyone.
Secondly, don’t use a discriminatory language. A typical example is to write “barmaid”. This implies that you are looking for females only. There is nothing wrong with that. You just need to change the way of presenting the information. It’s better to use neutral phrases and specify the sex separately.
3. Shortlist All Suitable Candidates
There is nothing extraordinary here; however, many people can’t control their biases against a particular group of people. Therefore, they fail to remain professional. This is not right. If a candidate matches the requirements, he/she should be shortlisted. No exceptions.
You can’t think that he/she is less talented because of kids or age. For example, if a nineteen-years-old has the same expertise as a forty-years-old candidate, it’s only logical to invite both for an interview.
4. Conduct Fair Interviews
All the interviews should be fair. You should treat all candidates equally. In particular, you should ask everyone the same questions regardless of their culture or marital status. This means a basic set of questions. Of course, further ones may differ according to the candidate’s answers.
Another important aspect is tolerance. You should show understanding to every candidate. For instance, representatives of some cultures may not shake your hand. This mustn’t influence your decision. All in all, it’s better to invite another colleague and conduct interviews together to reach a fair decision.
5. Offer the Job to the Best
You have to be objective when making your final decision. By this, we mean that you shouldn’t decide against or in favor of a candidate because he is 30, Jewish, or have three kids. You should hire a person because of his expertise and knowledge.
Others who you reject should receive an objective and clear explanation of why they didn’t get the job. This is likely to improve your reputation as an employer and exclude the risk of being accused of discrimination.
Diversity recruiting is the basis for a sustainable and efficient workplace. All you have to do is to remain professional, don’t you? If you know some hiring tips and use them in your job, please share them in the comments.
