Businesses wanting to avoid discrimination claims when
recruiting new employees should encourage all job applicants to
send in CVs that do not identify their ethnic background or the
school they went to - or even their name. And companies should
design their application forms in the same way.
That's the advice from Michael Slade, Managing Director of
employment law specialist and health and safety advisor Bibby
Consulting & Support, which provides companies with recruitment
and employment support services, including job application template
documents.
Slade's comments follow news that over 100 major UK companies -
including Barclays Bank and Tesco - have agreed with a government
suggestion that CVs and application forms should not show a
school's name or identify a candidate's ethnicity. The idea is to
eliminate any chance of discrimination during the application
process.
According to the government, applicants could be disadvantaged
if they put on their application form the name of a school that
doesn't have a good reputation. At the same time, their ethnicity
should be irrelevant to their suitability for a post.
The government slogan is "recruit fairly and without
discrimination", a stance that is enthusiastically supported by
Michael Slade.
"It is very important that business owners are seen to be 100
per cent fair when taking on new employees," he said, "so the
recruitment and selection process needs to be able to prove that a
person got the job based on their ability and not where they came
from."
Slade continued: "The Deputy Prime Minister has gone on record
as saying that getting a job should be about 'what you know, not
who you know' and we couldn't agree more. So it is absolutely vital
that companies reflect this approach and design their selection
processes to avoid the risk of discrimination claims."