Recruitment of new staff, while exciting for the business, can involve many potential pitfalls for employers. The recruitment process to find the right candidate for your business can therefore be a difficult and time-consuming process.
In addition, you need to be mindful of your legal obligations when taking on new staff. Under the Equality Act 2010, job applicants, as well as employees, are protected from discrimination on grounds of sex, race, disability, religion/belief, marital status, sexual orientation and age. A job applicant can bring a discrimination claim if they believe they have been discriminated against during any stage in the recruitment process.
However, it is not just about the law. It has been proven that a diverse workforce is more productive and generally has higher levels of innovation and creativity. Having a team with many different backgrounds also gives your business a wider perspective.
This month, we look at what you need to think about during the recruitment process and the steps you can take to avoid a discrimination claim when hiring new staff in the UK.
1. Demonstrate Your Commitment to Equality
It is recommended to have a recruitment policy in place that sets out a hiring process that is compliant with the anti-discrimination legislation. This should help you maintain a consistent approach to recruiting and as a result, reduce the likelihood of discriminatory practices creeping in.
You may also want to think about specific training on your company’s equality obligations for managers involved in the recruitment process. It is also important for such training to include awareness of unconscious bias that can occur, for example, in relation to a person’s background or cultural environment. This will help you to remain compliant with the law but will also demonstrate that you tried to take reasonable steps to avoid discrimination.
2. Avoid Discriminatory Job Adverts
It is vital to avoid using discriminatory language when advertising a job vacancy. Wording that indicates a pre-determined bias for a specific gender, such as ‘handyman’ or waitress’ should be avoided. Similarly, phrases such as ‘recent graduate’, or ‘dynamic and youthful’ can discriminate against older applicants, unless you have a good reason for that requirement in your advert.
Similarly, any job requirements or personal specifications that are not genuine or cannot be objectively justified may be discriminatory. For example, specifying a requirement for continuous experience may indirectly discriminate against women, who have taken time out from work for reasons related to maternity or childcare.
3. Advertise Widely
Try and reach a broad spectrum of potential applicants by using a mix of advertising channels. Do not rely too heavily on recommendations from the current workforce, especially if it is already made up of predominantly one demographic group, as this can mean that your workforce is less diverse than if you used a variety of methods such as job boards, social media and newspapers,
4. Try and Avoid using Social Media
While it may be tempting to find out a bit more about a potential employee by ‘googling’ their social media profile, Acas advises against it. This is because it is likely to reveal information about an individual’s personal life that could increase the potential for conscious or unconscious discrimination in the decision-making process. Furthermore, there are also data protection and privacy issues to consider.
5. Make Reasonable Adjustments for Disabled Applicants
Under the equality legislation, you are not allowed to ask applicants about their health or disabilities during the recruitment and selection processes.
However, UK law makes it unlawful to discriminate against qualified candidates based on disability and it also places an obligation on you to make changes where reasonable for disabled applicants during any stage of the recruitment process so that they can access the opportunity in the same way as others who do not have a disability.
As a result, you are allowed to find out if you need to make adjustments to the recruitment process to accommodate an applicant due to a disability. For example, you may need to hold interviews in a wheelchair-accessible room, offer a different interview time, or accept applications in a different format.
Some candidates will ask for interview questions in advance. You should consider their reasons for the request and then, if you decide to comply with that request, you will need to share the questions with all candidates.
6. Don’t Ask Questions that may Discriminate at the Interview
The interviewers carrying out the interview should understand the selection criteria for the role. This should focus on an applicant’s skills, capabilities and experience.
Where possible, interviews should be conducted by more than one person, as it reduces the risk of one individual’s bias prejudicing the decision-making.
There should be a standard set of questions for all candidates. Interviewers must avoid asking questions relating to protected characteristics unless they are strictly relevant to the job. For example, you cannot ask a job applicant about their age, their sickness absence, or whether they are married - all of these may be considered discriminatory.
Although they are often used to build up rapport in ordinary social situations, also steer clear of questions like ‘How many children do you have?’ or ‘That’s an interesting surname, where is that from?’ in the recruitment context because they may result in a discussion about a protected characteristic or be misinterpreted.
7. Keep a Record of Decision-Making
Make sure you keep a clear internal record of all the decisions you have made and why so that you have evidence of your process and the rationale behind your decision-making. This is key if you ever need to justify your decision in an employment tribunal.
There are many advantages to avoiding and actively preventing discrimination in the recruitment process. Aside from minimising the legal risks, there are clear advantages of having a more diverse workforce and this practice will also result in fairer and, often better, hiring decisions.
If you would like to talk to our expert employment team about your recruitment process or any other employment law issue, contact us today via email.
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