Legal compliance and ethical standards in HR hiring practices

¶ … working with a team? Regardless of your answer, please explain.

Please give examples of times where you have had to communicate something important. Please describe the medium or mediums you used, how you crafted the message and to what kind of people you were communicating (e.g. managers, all employees, customers, etc.)

What specific skills or experiences that you have do you feel would best qualify you for this position. Please give at least two or three but no more than five that you feel are the most important

If you were to notice that your team is less than motivated and on top of things, what would you say or do to turn things around and get people engaged?

What leadership style or styles do you think are best for this job? Would you vary your approach based on what precisely is going on at any given time?

Best Practices

Never ... ever ... ask questions about immigration status, age, gender, marital status, kids, race, ethnicity, or anything else about a person's personal traits. Any and all questions must pertain and must be mundane to the job and the ability to complete the same.

When it comes to immigration status, so long as the employee can provide proof of identity and prove of authorization to work (e.g. Social Security Number), any further scrutiny about the employee and their status as a legal citizen is out of bounds unless there is something extreme or out of place like potentially fraudulent documents, a name mismatch in the Social Security verification system or something of that nature

Human resources staff should be aware that they can be subject to scrutiny from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) or other non-discrimination bodies even if there is no overt racism occurring. For example, if about thirty percent of the applicants for a firm are black but only ten percent of the hired employee base is black, this could raise eyebrows with the EEOC. This does not mean that racism is occurring and it could just be that that the best applicants currently on staff just happened to not be black. However, such a circumstance would be known as "disparate impact" and this can cause a review of a firm's hiring practices to occur.

Employers need to be careful about what is asked or not asked when it comes to criminal history. Of course, if legal questions are asked and the employee turns out to be a violent felon or openly lies about their history, this is more than enough reason to exclude them. However, employers should be mindful that there are restrictions on what can be asked and when those questions can be asked. Beyond that, a criminal history should not by itself disqualify someone from employment but there is also the concept of not engaging in negligent hiring and endangering the reputation of the firm or the safety of the employees. For example, someone with a rape conviction should not be hired for an office with women as there would be a valid concern about someone being attacked and there would be hell to pay from the women employees if they were to find out ... attack or no attack.

Do not openly talk about or discuss discipline matters or hiring/promotion decisions outside of closed doors. That information is on a "need to know" basis and should generally be limited to the employee that is the subject of the review and the managers in the chain above that employee, the reporting manager in particular. Under no circumstances should such details be shared around the office lest they become part of gossip.

There are certain acts and behaviors that are truly zero tolerance when it comes to human resources and the workplace. These would include workplace violence, sexual harassment, sexual assault/groping and things like that. Firm policies should be in place when it comes to such things and they should be enforced to the letter every single time. Inconsistent policy enforcement can lead to lawsuits up to and including EEOC-type litigation if minorities or women are treated more harshly than non-minorities and men.

With the above in mind, anything of any important in terms of desired practices, best practices or policy in general should be in print or online and employees should be made aware of and be required to acknowledge that they are in receipt of these policies and thus will follow them. It is not beyond the pale to have an unwritten rule that is nonetheless consistently followed but having it in print removes all doubt and will remove a huge point of potential contention if someone questions why they are being punished or coached for something that is not "official" and in print. Just as with the very important policies, all policies should be followed consistently and to the letter unless there is a specific and reasonable reason why not. The zero tolerance nature of policies like sexual harassment and violence should stay firm but other policies should be open up to discretion if the situation calls for it. For example, if there is a "blackout" on vacation or other time off during the holiday weeks but someone has a death in their immediate family, an exception should be granted for that person or the bereavement policy (which should exist) should allow for the days to occur at any point of the year.

It is generally agreed and known that company equipment really should not be used for personal web browsing, phone conversations and so forth. However, it happens all the time. Despite the equipment being company owned, there are actually people that advocate for employee privacy despite the fact that they are not on their own personal computers or phones. A lot of this animus can be tamped down if it is stated in no uncertain terms that internet and phone use is subject to monitoring at all times and without notice. It should further be made clear that people wanting to keep their personal business private should not use company equipment to conduct personal business. It should generally be against policy to do so anyway but a few quick calls here and there or web surfing during breaks should not be treated like the crime of the century as it is just leads to wasted effort on things that are not really important.