- Do you have an outdated — or no employee handbook?
- Be careful asking inappropriate – or the wrong questions during an employment interview
- Are You Using Outdated or No job descriptions?
- Are you conducting background checks on your prospective employees?
- Be sure you are properly paying overtime to non-exempt employees
- Are you consistently documenting work practices?
- Educate your employees on sexual and other forms of workplace harassment and discrimination
- Are you avoiding or inconsistently dealing with any employee performance, behavior and conduct issues?
- Formally evaluate employee performance and development
Employers can inadvertently create potential legal problems by asking the wrong questions – with the best of intentions.
Remember, it’s the impact you may have, and not your intentions, that can get you, as an interviewer, in trouble. Anyone interviewing applicants should have a refresher about which questions are legally appropriate and which are not, and then develop a list of behavioral and situational based questions to assess each candidate’s suitability and qualifications for the position. Avoid any questions relating to age, arrest record, marital status, race, national origin, religion, disability, and pregnancy, to name a few.
Rule of Thumb: If it’s not related to the work or the job, don’t ask.
