Nov

Interviewing Techniques For Employers – How to Interview Within The Law

Joe McDermott | Employers

With ever increasing topics now the subject of discrimination legislation employers could be forgiven for wondering how on earth they can find out about people in job interviews without falling foul of the law.

Is Discrimination At Job Interview Stage a Real Problem?

UK employers are subject to a complicated series of legal responsibilities and rights, obligations and entitlements.From a employment point of view the main thrust is to prevent discrimination, which is said to take place when an employer treats one jobholder less favourably than another.

At a basic level, this could mean a female employee being paid less than a male colleague for doing exactly the same job or a minority ethnic employee being refused the training opportunities offered to white colleagues.

Discrimination legislation, in all cases, applies to whatever happens before an appointment is made as well as after people are employed by a company.

Legislation in the United Kingdom now affects the following areas:

Age
Gender
Race
Religion
Sexual Orientation
Disability
Political Affiliation
National Origin
Criminal Record
Marital Status

Employers Risk Facing Legal Action and Unlimited Fines

So just to clarify, job applicants who believe their rights have been infringed can take a potential employer to tribunal. Employment tribunals can recommend various remedies and can impose a range of fines, which are unlimited where discrimination is found to have occurred.

Recent examples include:

In November a woman in North Lanarkshire was awarded over £3,000 compensation for sex discrimination when she was turned down for a job at a shop because she was expecting her second child.

The first age discrimination case in Northern Ireland was awarded to a 58 year old salesman who had been turned down for a job at a timber firm in Belfast.

And in February a bishop was ordered to attend training on equal opportunist and compensate a gay youth worker to the tune of £50,000, after refusing him employment.

So not working around these rules and regulations can have a tangible affect on the bottom line for an employer, quite apart from the wasted time, hassle and potential bad feeling, all of which can affect the
performance of the organisation as a whole.

How To Interview Within The Law

Legislation extends to prospective employees and interview candidates and as an interviewer you need to be aware of the law.

It is vital and that you stay on the right side of anti-discrimination legislation at every step of the recruitment process and the RecruitSure training course teaches you how to interview within the law and actually creates fully legal interview scripts within minutes.