How to Avoid Discrimination When Hiring

You need must take several steps to avoid discrimination charges when hiring employees. Here is a summary of the best practices.

Instructions

1. Familiarize yourself with state and federal discrimination laws before hiring a new employee. You can find information on federal employment laws through the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (see Resources below). Your state's Justice Department or Attorney General's office can also provide information on fair hiring practices.

2. Maintain a neutral applicant assessment process whenever possible. For example, the use of online editing tests for a publishing position allows your HR staff to review work on its own merits.

3. Organize a group of diverse interviewers during each hiring cycle. You should utilize interviewers of different age groups, experience levels and ethnic and religious backgrounds to help prevent discrimination when hiring new employees. A diverse group of interviewers ensures a wide range of perspectives on individual candidates.

4. Peruse every note taken by interviewers to ensure comments focus on an applicant's abilities, not her appearance. You rely heavily upon interviewers as a main point of contact with potential employees. Any notations that feature discriminatory language should lead to an investigation and related consequences.

5. Eliminate demographic questions from applications, forms and other materials that potential employees need to fill out. For example, do not ask the gender or the race of an applicant on an application. Your HR department can send out an optional affirmative action form that can be filled out by an applicant at his discretion.

6. Keep the hiring process transparent by providing reasons for a rejected application. Candidates who receive form letters about their applications may feel that their race, sexuality or religion affected your hiring decision. You can alleviate a great deal of tension and frustration by explaining that a candidate lacked the necessary experience or qualifications.

Tips & Warnings

• Eliminate the main causes of hiring discrimination with company-wide meetings that discuss stereotypes. Professors at your local university or other professional public speakers can discuss the historical instances of prejudice, and help your staff avoid making the same mistakes. A member of your HR staff may possess adequate training to run break-out sessions to create open dialogue about how prejudice creeps into the workplace.