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Hiring

Cull interview lists to ensure you include the most-qualified candidates

07/30/2013
Before you begin talking to candidates, make sure everyone you selected for an interview opportunity is among the best qualified, and that you haven’t passed over anyone who is obviously as well-qualified as other applicants. That’s the best way to avoid a needless failure-to-hire suit.

Concord Chick-fil-A sued for half-baked hiring approach

07/30/2013
The EEOC is suing a Chick-fil-A res­­tau­­rant in Concord, alleging violations of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act that almost any savvy HR professional would have known to avoid.

What do we need to consider when crafting a policy on unpaid intern injuries?

07/26/2013
Q. We recently started to provide unpaid internship opportunities to local college students… The interns are not subject to the same process as other permanent or temporary employees in terms of background checks and workers’ compensation insurance. Now we’re looking at how best to structure this relationship to address issues such as what happens if an intern is hurt at a client facility. How should we approach this?

Feel free to place reasonable background check conditions on job offers

07/26/2013
Good news for employers that have had to revoke conditional employment offers: Employers that discover disqualifying information after an offer has been tendered but before the candidate starts work are free to revoke the offer. That won’t result in a big jury award.

Buying business and rehiring staff? Beware excluding employees who have filed lawsuits

07/23/2013
When you buy a business, the employees generally don’t automatically transfer. Typically, the new owner decides which employees to keep on the payroll. Before you exclude any existing employees from consideration, make sure that rejecting them won’t look like a failure to hire because they have previously filed discrimination litigation.

Medical pot laws don’t prohibit drug testing

07/23/2013
You are free to tell employees they can be terminated for having marijuana in their systems and then randomly test for the substance. That’s true even if a doctor recommends that the employee use medical marijuana.

When is the right time to do background checks?

07/19/2013
Q. When should we be doing our background checks: Before an offer is made? After the offer is made and before employment? Or after employment has begun? We generally do the check after we make an offer and before employment starts. 

Congress and more states seek to block employer access to employees’ Facebook/Twitter passwords

07/18/2013
In the past year, laws banning em­­ployers from asking employees and applicants to hand over passwords to their personal social media sites have been passed in 10 states. Now, such legislation is pending in Congress.

Can an offer letter create liability?

07/17/2013
Q. Our company recently terminated a manager who had been with us for less than three months. He just seemed not to be the right fit. Now the former employee is threatening to sue, saying he left a good opportunity to take a job with us, based on our offer and what was said in the hiring process. We did use an offer letter, which stated that employment would be at-will and that the offer letter did not constitute a contract of employment. Do we have cause for concern?

Minnesota ‘bans the box,’ limiting background checks

07/17/2013
Minnesota has joined the league of states that have adopted “ban the box” legislation that bars most employers from obtaining or asking for an applicant’s criminal history before the applicant has either been selected for an interview or received a conditional job offer.