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Hiring

Michigan Seamless Tube to pay $500,000 for hiring discrimination

08/01/2007

Michigan Seamless Tube will pay $500,000 to settle a class-action race-discrimination lawsuit filed by the EEOC for refusing to hire black former employees of Vision Metals …

Establish promotion criteria to discourage lawsuits

08/01/2007

If your organization is like many, employees anxious to move up the ladder covet promotions. But if you have no clear-cut standards or easy-to-explain criteria, lawsuits lurk behind every unqualified, but passed-over, employee …

It IS rocket science: Learn from NASA how to prevent ‘Brain drain’ at your company

07/31/2007

Use NASA’s seven-question approach to help stem the loss of critical knowledge at your organization…

Immigration reform: States pick up ball U.S. Senate dropped

07/17/2007

When the U.S. Senate failed to pass comprehensive immigration-reform legislation last month, the problem didn’t go away. Now states are stepping in to craft local solutions to problems related to undocumented immigrants. Employers are likely to bear the enforcement burden.

Stay-At-Home kids: Fewer teens than ever apply for summer jobs

07/09/2007

Having a hard time finding seasonal help this summer? You’re not alone. The age-old summer ritual of American kids working at the local movie theater and swimming hole is quickly eroding. Fewer than half of 16- to 19-year-olds were either working or looking for work in June,  down from 60% just seven years ago …

Fire them before you hire them

07/03/2007

Culling through stacks of resumes and conducting two or three rounds of interviews takes too long, is too subjective and too often results in bad hires. Employee selection expert Karl Alrichs proposes a four-step hiring process that saves managers time, reveals the best candidates, and highlights the intangibles that separate good employees from the bad ones.

Job applications: How to create a legally safe form

07/02/2007

No single federal law governs job applications. Your biggest risk is asking unnecessary questions that run afoul of federal or state laws banning job discrimination on the basis of sex, age, race, religion, national origin or disability. But, done right, your application can be a great tool to communicate important information …

When same manager hires and fires, it’s unlikely to be discrimination

07/01/2007

The New York Human Rights Law, like Title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act, makes it illegal to fire an employee because of his or her race. Both laws also recognize that it’s unlikely that a manager who is aware of an employee’s race when hiring would turn around and fire the same employee because of race …

Check policies for impact on older applicants and employees

07/01/2007

Ever since a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2005, older workers and applicants have been able to prevail in age discrimination suits if they can show that an employer’s policy or hiring standard has a so-called “disparate impact” on those over 40 years old …

Don’t post promotion opportunities? It’s time to reconsider

07/01/2007

Think twice if your company relies on informal in-house recommendations to fill open positions. The courts look suspiciously on such “networking” promotions and land hard on employers that don’t post job openings …