Ending discrimination once and for all should be each company’s long-term goal, but unfortunately, it does still occur. A single discrimination lawsuit against a company brought by a candidate who believes that he or she was denied a job solely because of their name, gender, race or any other aspect of their life unrelated to their skills and abilities, can permanently damage the company’s reputation. My name is Naomi Burgess and I’m going to give you some tips on how to prevent discrimination in your company when you hire new people.
Stop recruitment discrimination
If you don’t have an HR department, you’re probably reading the CVs and cover letters herself and chances are, you’re aware of how to recruit people on the basis of their experience, skills and qualifications alone. However, if you do have an HR department, I suggest that you implement some measures in order to fight recruitment discrimination.
Be straight to the point but informative
Hiring process usually begins with you, or the head of the relevant department, drawing up a list of responsibilities and entry requirements. Make sure to be as concise, yet as detailed as possible – a candidate should have most of the information prior to making a decision to apply to your company. If they don’t have the required skills listed on the advertisement, chances are that they won’t waste yours and theirs time and money.
Don’t Judge names take time to read
Once you receive several CVs and/or application forms for the position, you can take your time to sift through them. There have been many instances when a person with a non-English name has been discriminated against solely on the basis of their name, and in order to prevent the same thing from happening within the walls of your company, I recommend that you submit the information pertaining solely to the key skills and experience of the candidate to your HR department. An alternative approach would be simply blacking out the names on the CVs in order to prevent discrimination.
Plan the your specific qualifications
When the department has shortlisted the candidates to be interviewed, they would proceed with interview invitations either by phone or e-mail. Interviews should be carefully planned, and the questions should be about the candidates’ experience, skills and knowledge, because those are the attributes you’re interested in – not their nationality, name, age, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or marital status. By planning the questions carefully in advance, asking the questions that pertain to the above aspects of a person’s life unrelated to the job can be avoided. You should also draw up a scoring sheet for each candidate where you can write your notes, and which can help you, following the interview, determine the candidate’s scores in each competency assessed. This way, the recruitment process remains objective and discrimination is avoided.
Discrimination could lead to business failure
Preventing discrimination isn’t just about avoiding prospective damaging lawsuits. As a modern business owner, you should understand the importance of diversity initiatives and engaging with people from various backgrounds in order to achieve results. If your company is discriminating against candidates that don’t fit into the “white middle-class male” mold, you’re missing out on some great, skilled workers that can really make a difference to your business. However, if you implement anti-discrimination measures within your company, you’re one step closer to ending employment discrimination worldwide.
