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Hiring

Put this on your interview checklist

05/28/2010
You can tell a lot about potential hires by the way they treat the receptionist when they call or arrive for an interview.

Warn bosses: E-mail is smoking-gun evidence

05/27/2010

The risk isn’t new—e-mail has been around for a while. But managers and supervisors still continue to play fast and loose with their e-comments. E-mail messages are increasingly finding their way into employment-law court battles. Remind managers in the hiring process that it’s typically better to pick up the phone or walk down the hall to discuss a candidate than it is to send an e-mail.

Is it OK to ask about race?

05/26/2010
Q. We have all new employees fill out a data sheet. Is it OK to ask them to reveal their race on this form?

EEOC, N.J. man say Accenture’s background checks are biased

05/26/2010
Management consulting giant Accenture faces a class-action lawsuit over its use of background checks on job applicants. The suit, filed in New York, alleges Accenture’s policy of background checks has a disparate impact on minorities.

Have business justification for hiring rules that could cause disparate impact

05/26/2010

Is your workforce less diverse than the local labor market? You can head off discrimination lawsuits by citing legitimate business needs that justify hiring rules that seem to cause disparities. The best approach: Have a clear business justification for any screening or job criteria you use, even if you don’t expect they will cause a disparate impact on any protected group.

Creating drug-free workplace: How to draft a policy, conduct legal tests

05/26/2010

When drug abuse isn’t an obvious problem in the workplace, it’s easy for employers to develop a cavalier attitude about it. That’s not smart. It’s in your best interest to detect employee drug abuse early and root it out immediately. Keeping your workplace drug-free means knowing how to spot the problem and effectively respond to it—without violating employees’ legal rights and creating legal liability.

Supreme Court: Title VII deadline clock resets with each new biased decision

05/25/2010
The Supreme Court has unanimously ruled that the Title VII lawsuit clock resets each time an employer uses apparently biased job-qualification tests to make hiring decisions. Lewis v. Chicago recharts the litigation calendar, while recalling two other landmark Supreme Court cases.

What documentation do we need to hire minors as seasonal employees?

05/24/2010
Q. We would like to hire several high school students to work in our retail store for the summer. Do we need to take any extra steps in our hiring process if we want to employ minors?

Big insurance provider named ‘model’ of diversity

05/20/2010
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan (BCBSM) focuses on hiring and developing employees with disabilities. The organization was singled out by the U.S. Business Leadership Network as one of three businesses in the country that do an exceptional job when it comes to hiring and retaining employees and accommodating their needs at work. So BCBSM is sharing its best practices with other organizations:

Illinois union jobs jump despite poor economy

05/17/2010
According to the latest numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Illinois gained 12,000 union jobs last year, and the rate of union membership jumped almost a full percentage point, from 16.6% in 2008 to 17.5% in 2009. Illinois is bucking the nation’s broader union job loss trend. Nationwide, union jobs took a proportionately bigger hit during the economic downturn than nonunion jobs did.