Recruitment compliance regulations are the guidelines every HR team should follow. These provide the rules for how they advertise, screen, and recruit suitable candidates to occupy different positions in their organization. All members must observe these regulations along with state laws and their own firm’s policies.
Failure to meet compliance standards will earn your business fines and penalties from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) or a similar authority in your place of work. In turn, your company's reputation tanks, losing public trust and opportunities for growth. Worse still, this can bring down your entire enterprise.
In light of this, administrators should invest time and resources to reduce the risk of compliance issues. For some, that would include updating the technology they use for communications, like fax services. Whatever it takes, you should do what you can to make it easier for your HR department to stay on the safe side of regulatory boards, improving the ethical standing of your organization.
Compliance ideally means recruiting qualified applicants based on their skills, experience, and qualifications without prejudice. All people deserve a chance to earn well through fulfilling work. This is a belief upheld by law. Therefore, as a responsible entity in your community, you must do your part to uphold this.
Here are some steps trustworthy HR departments take to make recruitment processes compliant.
1. Guarantee Fair Interviews For Everyone
The interview is an essential part of the recruitment process. This step helps you gauge how eligible a potential candidate is for the open position. Therefore, if you're an HR manager handling recruitment, you must check if your panel knows how to conduct them fairly.
The reason is that this is the part that compliance commissions use to determine your level of compliance. Knowing this, ensure that your interview panel focuses on the following when interviewing the candidates:
- Skills and expertise highlighted in the job description
- The applicant's ability to handle the job
- Their experience
- Communication and interpersonal skills
Always avoid questions that zero in on the following topics:
- Gender
- Religion
- Color
- Race
- Disability
- Family matters
- Personal matters like pregnancy
These topics can make you declared non-compliant by the EOC. So, stick to asking questions relevant to the vacant job position. The idea is to avoid discrimination and bias by all means. In this regard, you should also prevent excluding job seekers above 40. They're eligible for the interview if they've not yet reached retirement age.
One way of ensuring that your interview is fair and non-discriminatory is formulating questions beforehand, assigning marks to each of them, and typing them on a scorecard. Use the latter to determine how your questions could be deemed problematic. You should also have anticipated answers to know if the interview stays on track.
As you interview the applicants, award marks on each question based on how each candidate answered. In the end, you can have the total score of each candidate and choose the one with the highest score. Of course, you should also consider other factors like dress code and etiquette.
2. Protect Job-Seekers' Personal Information
Compliance regulations require that hirers protect their potential employees' information at all costs. Never make decisions regarding estimated salary, employment, and organizational policies based on the information in the 'protected category.' That includes the following:
- Origin
- Race
- Sexual orientation
- Weight
- Gender
- Skin color
- Gender
Some bits of information may not seem to be possible causes of discrimination to you. However, they may affect a person in one way or another as you hire them. In this light, the panel must put their own responses under scrutiny and have the compassion and awareness to handle them.
For instance, if an individual mispronounces a word during the interview and the panel laughs, the candidate may feel offended. On the other hand, the interviewers just think of it as a slight mishap.
Some recruiters screen people for desk work based on their weight for ‘health reasons.’ Relevant state bodies question such specifications since it makes assumptions about a person’s state of health and capacity to work.
However, exemptions exist for things like military or firefighting recruitment. In these cases, the stakeholders involved have to look at specifications like age and physical fitness because of the nature of the work.
It's critical to ensure that your panel stays focused, knows that people have different backgrounds and personalities, and holds itself accountable for any possible instances of bias. This means that, at all points of the hiring process, the HR team must keep anything personal about the candidates out of the picture.
3. Securing An Applicant's Consent Before Doing A Background Check
Background checks confirm whether the information given by candidates is accurate. This process is vital because it helps you avoid hiring applicants who misrepresent their qualifications.
Some of the details you'd want to verify include:
- Academic history and qualifications
- Convictions
- Drug test history
- Employment history
- Driving certifications
- Criminal records
Confirming the applicant's job-related history is a priority for most businesses. But to keep background checks on this ground transparent, the Fair Credit Reporting Act requires that you get signed consent from the applicant before proceeding.
This will help you avoid using protected information to make your decision. Since the background check compliance form has both the disclosure and authorization part, the applicant should also agree to both terms.
Keep Your Recruitment Process Ethical
If HR departments and administrations as a whole care about being responsible employers, staying in line with recruitment compliance regulations is the first step. These protect people’s right to gainful employment regardless of their background or present circumstances.
The rules don’t stop there; these tips are only a sampling of the many ways recruiters can practice accountability, transparency, and fairness in their hiring management. Take some time to evaluate your own recruitment procedures to find ways you can improve them. This way, you protect your interests as well as those of your community.