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Discrimination / Harassment

Recruit broadly to ensure diverse applicant pool

01/14/2021
Employees and job applicants can win age discrimination lawsuits if they prove an employer’s personnel practices have a negative disparate impact on older persons.

Act ASAP to prevent customer from harassing

01/14/2021
Title VII doesn’t just outlaw co-worker and supervisor harassment, it also holds employers responsible for preventing and stopping harassment from outside the organization. As much as you don’t want to alienate customers, you must intercede if they harass your employees.

EEOC begins issuing formal opinion letters

01/12/2021
The EEOC has quietly begun taking a page out of the Department of Labor’s playbook, issuing formal opinion letters on matters related to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act.

National origin bias need not target specific country

01/07/2021
Discriminating on the basis of an employee’s national origin violates Title VII. But as one recent case shows, national origin discrimination doesn’t have to involve a particular nation.

Forced leave isn’t pregnancy accommodation

01/07/2021
Some pregnant women develop complications that require temporary restrictions. Be careful about how you handle those restrictions! Beware requiring a pregnant employee to take FMLA leave. And think twice about denying light-duty work as a reasonable accommodation.

Search EEOC’s new database of EEO-1 info

12/30/2020
The EEOC has just released a searchable database of the EEO-1 data it collects each year from large employers. It’s called EEOC Explore, and it can be a valuable resource for HR pros interested in benchmarking diversity initiatives and auditing hiring practices for possible bias.

#MeToo era: Say goodbye to token settlements

12/30/2020
Once upon a time, employers could make many sex discrimination and harassment complaints go away with a discreet, relatively small settlement. That’s a fairy tale now.

Ignore harassment complaints, plan on lawsuit

12/17/2020
Some managers mistakenly assume that if they ignore harassment complaints long enough, victims will quit and the problem will disappear. That’s wishful thinking.

Identify pay disparities, correct them now

12/10/2020
Here’s a reminder that employers should proactively revise their pay practices with an eye toward ending pay disparities. The fact is, agencies such as the EEOC are going all out to make sure women are paid as much as men, even if the differences are small or don’t last long.

Automated interviews raise bias concerns

12/10/2020
By automating part of the hiring process, there’s less scheduling hassle and more opportunity to quickly screen out clearly unqualified and unsuitable applicants while identifying the most promising candidates. But there are also disadvantages.