I can’t over-emphasize the need for proper documentation for your hiring process. Companies without a clear explanation of the various components of the hiring process and their job relatedness are crusin for a brusin!! This is especially true in situations where the applicant population is usually made up mostly of minorities.
A recent settlement against Perdue Chicken is the latest illustration of what can happen when a company elects to forgo the documentation needed to prove their practices are in compliance.
Perdue’s head of HR regretfully states:
“Perdue is committed to treating all job applicants fairly. We regret we did not more carefully document our hiring process for production associates, which led to these concerns by the OFCCP and, ultimately, to this settlement.”
Ultimately this mistake cost Perdue $800,000 in back wages and interest to 750 women and minorities who were not hired during the relevant time period. As someone who is in the business of creating and documenting legally defensible hiring practices, I can say confidently that it would have cost them a heck of a lot less to have done things correctly.
The current economic and political climate has led to an increase in EEOC and OFCCP compliance investigations meaning that cases like this one are going to continue to be in the news.
The timeless words of Ben Franklin, ” An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” have never been more relevant when it comes to your hiring practices!! As an added bonus, properly validated hiring practices (of which documentation is a key part) have been shown time and again to provide significant ROI in addition to the piece of mind one gets from helping to ensure compliance.