Recruitment

Selecting the right people for the right jobs and integrating them into your existing workforce to obtain maximum benefit and return on investment is crucial for success. As we all know recruitment should be an open and competitive process unfortunately there is an inherent difficulty readily apparent to even the dullest observer. Recruitment involves selection and implicitly that entails discriminating against some candidates. However provided selection is not tainted by unlawful discrimination the employer will not be at risk. For that you require consistency, as in all areas of people management. There is only one way to demonstrate this, and it is by a systemised approach to the whole activity.

If recruitment is a closed process this can lead to unintended discrimination. Relying on employee recommendations and family contacts reinforces the ethnic, gender and age breakdown at work. To ensure you fish in the widest pool possible all jobs should be advertised and internal applicants and friends and family of staff should be encouraged to apply but then scored the same way as outside applicants.

Currently, probably the biggest single challenge on recruitment is catering for disability. Clearly you should not specify conditions that are not relevant. If the job can be done by someone disabled with some adjustments then you should look at whether those adjustments are reasonable. For example a blind person could perfectly well operate the telephone with the benefit of a Braille keypad. However someone who is blind may not be able to work with the machine tools. From October 2006 such considerations also apply to age. This legislation represents not so much a change as a seismic shift which will confront fundamental attitudes and overturn prejudice as to who really is the best applicant for the job. Maturity will have to be measured against energy and physical attractiveness and objective criteria applied in making a decision.

The danger is portraying these anti-discrimination requirements as negative and dismissing them as political correctness, but why would a business not want to employ the most able and most committed staff? If discrimination is not monitored and avoided then the business is actually shutting itself off to a vein of talent it might otherwise include. If women, ethnic minorities, gays, disabled are not included in the potential pool of staff then the business is recruiting in shallow water.

If you would like to know more about how to avoid the discrimination minefield and ensure you appoint the right people for your organisation we can assist you with the following:

We are happy to discuss any of the above aspects of recruitment before quoting for any work that you might like undertaken.


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