Hiring Practices and Legal Compliance
The process of acquiring and hiring employees is one of the most critical methods in a company that requires adequate processes and procedures to help identify the best candidate to join the team. Hiring practices like pre-employment assessments are essential and should be done in a consistent, fair legal manner to ensure all procedures applied are unbiased. For large warehouses, most of the jobs require candidates with more physical skills compared to other professions; this, however, doesn’t mean that other skills don’t matter.
Assessment of these skills should be legally applicable according to employment laws and practices. According to discrimination laws, all hiring managers should ensure that the tests involved are unified and do not undermine any gender, age, religion, origin, or race. Failure to do this makes motives of discrimination a disparate treatment that is punishable by law under Title VII of the civil rights act. The pre-hiring tests are also expected to be all-inclusive and intended wholly on the job vacancy at hand. They should also be consistent and related to the job applied for; regarding physical tests, the primary measure should be physical strength, blood pressure, weight, and other criteria, according to EEOC. It is unethical for the managers to employ practices that are challenging, not related to the job, nor consistent with the necessities of the position. The tests should also not have a disparate impact on other candidates; thus, due diligence and consultation should be done to ensure that fairness and equality are incorporated in the tests.
Hiring managers are also expected to work hand in hand with medical practitioners to ensure that the pre-employment hiring tests comply with health practices and job appropriately. Tests for isokinetic strengths, aerobic capacity, and arm ergometer should be gauged considerably between men and women to eradicated disparate impact over gender. Once this is done, the hiring managers should also ensure that the role being assessed should match the tests gauge indicated and approved by the practitioners. The tests applied should also be validated by certified authorities to ensure that the administered tests comply with the standards set. However, this does not mean that the managers should carry out all the checks presented, but only those that are related to the job description. The tests managers should also rely on consultants to ensure that the tests that are not obsolete but are valid and still practical. Once the need for recruits is identified, the managers should ensure that they clearly indicate the job descriptions in the advertisement to ensure that interested candidates are not misleading. In the case of warehouse recruitment, it is vital that the job tasks mentioned clearly bring out the nature of the job.
The (EEOC) Equal Employment Opportunity Commission covers most labor unions and employers to ensure that labor laws are maintained and applied to the letter. They are authorized to investigate disparate treatment, which is the discriminative behavior in hiring, employment, and retaining of an individual within a workforce. They are also permitted under the law to blot out disparate impact practices, which are neutral tests and methods that prove to be a limitation to various characters in the job market. The commission is also responsible for filing and reporting of employers who violate labor laws protecting employees. They evaluate the case, evidence, and the impacts of discrimination in the workforce. It is, therefore, important that all the tests used by hiring managers are medically and lawfully compliant.
Best hiring practice not only ensure that the right candidates are hired but also improves the effectiveness and efficiency of job delivery. Commissions like EEOC are also significant since they not only protect the employees but also the employers, so hiring managers should not view the commission as a threat but as labor laws protective agency. In the case of recruiting a warehouse employee, strength, flexibility, stamina, power, and muscular tension should be measured not with equity but equality. However, should injuries happen during the tests, the employers may take the necessary precautions but are not liable for such misfortune happenings.
Reference
London, T. (2019). Best hiring practices. South Carolina State Documents Depository.
Maurer, R. (2017). EEOC: Strength Tests Risk Bias Against Women.https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/talent-acquisition/pages/eeoc-strength-tests-risk-bias-aganist-women.aspx Retrieved 19/04/2020
Rhodes, J (2016). Physical Skills Test for Paramedics Violated Title VII.https://www/shrm.org/resourcesandtool/legal-and-compliance/employment-law/pages/physical-skills-test-paramedics.aspx Retrieved 19/04/2020