Documentation, documentation, documentation…
Doesn’t it seem like it is getting harder and harder to be a business owner in Ontario these days? On top of all the other rules and regulations employers need to follow, 1 Stop HR comes along and after an HR Audit of your business, tells you that you should also be documenting your entire recruitment and selection process! I promise you that we don’t tell you this stuff to make you crazy! Truly, we are looking out for your business and want to work with you to implement best practices to save you trouble down the line!
Informal Interviews:
Gone are the days where you should continue to have informal interviews with potential new employees. These informal interviews, though they may put the candidate at ease, and be more comfortable for you, they can come back to haunt you. How you ask? Well, here’s the thing…if you don’t have a documented comprehensive process i.e. Policy noting your Interview process including, as an example, that you have 3 interviews, the first being a telephone interview, the second an in person and the third a final in person interview and then have documented interview questions that you ask of EACH candidate for the position in question and have a interview question scoring guide – a candidate could claim that they were discriminated against, and you would not be able to prove that it didn’t happen – or at least provide documentation to help support your position.
A Deeper Look:
Let’s look at this further. You go through your interview process starting with 15 candidates and narrow down to three and then choose one to offer the position to. One of the candidates, (not offered the job), comes forward and says that you didn’t choose him due to “X” – and “X” happens to be a protected ground. How can you provide documentation that all candidates went through the same process, were asked the same questions (none of which were discriminatory) and that the selection criteria was based on overall best fit through your scoring guide of your interview questions…NOT “X’? Scribbling down notes in the interview process, asking different questions of different candidates for the same job, and “choosing” the new employee based on your “gut” does not provide you with any security in this situation and can actually lead to more problems.
So yes, it is a painful process to go through…but in the long run, documenting your entire process, documenting your interview questions for each stage of your interview and for EACH unique position within your company, complete with a comprehensive scoring guide, will help you greatly if ever such a claim comes forward to your company. Certainly, there are more best practices as well, like ensuring that your interviewers are familiar with Human Rights and what you can and cannot ask during an interview etc. Ensure not to miss out on these important pieces.
Struggling? Need more help? We can help!