Criminal background checks are an important preemployment screen for many organizations. And rightfully so. If I own a company that sends service workers to other people's homes or businesses, I don't want to send someone I wouldn't want in my own home or business and expose my customers to potential risks they wouldn't find acceptable.
But this once commonplace practice has come under scrutiny in recent years. And the criticisms do have merit. Some segments of the population are convicted of crimes at a much higher rate than other segments, and critics suggest that requiring a criminal background check and screening out candidates for infractions that are not really job related may be a type of discrimination.
Employers should evaluate each job on its own merits. Certainly rejecting a candidate for a bookkeeper position who has a felony fraud conviction is hard to debate. But bouncing a candidate for a scaffolding erector position for a non-violent misdemeanor five years ago might be considered overzealous.
The key for employers is avoid having a blanket policy regarding what constitutes a passing or failing criminal background screen. Instead, set criteria for each job title or job grouping separately. For example, the company may set higher standards for candidates who will be driving company vehicles than those who will always be passengers or those working on the plant floor. The company might have a different set of standards for employees who will have access to cash or the company's books than for administrative roles that have no such access.
And finally, conduct the background screen post-offer! There are several advantages of conducting the screens after an offer has been made (contingent upon meeting the screening standards) versus conducting the screen in advance of the offer:
1. It's less expensive - why pay for a screen if you haven't come to financial terms with the candidate. Furthermore, the Fair Credit Reporting Act requires employers send a specific kind of notice to candidates who are rejected on the basis of a criminal background or credit check. Run the screen on several finalists, and you may have to send multiple notices out.
2. It provides a much stronger defense against discrimination. If you have a signed offer letter from a minority candidate conditional upon meeting the company's standards, and those standards are reasonable, it's hard for the EEOC to conclude that your organization utilizes discriminatory hiring practices. If you conduct the screen pre-offer, you can't prove that you would have hired the minority even if the screen results were acceptable.
3. Some states don't allow pre-offer criminal background screens (it is legal in NC, SC and VA). If your organization operates in multiple states, make sure you know the law in each state.
If you really want to be an early adopter and reduce your risk with the EEOC even further, consider revising your employment application to comply with the national "ban the box" trend. This means you don't ask candidates to list any convictions on the application (thereby demonstrating that you don't reject applicants on the basis of criminal background, alone). Instead, have a statement on the application that tells applicants that the company conducts post-offer criminal background screens and that criteria varies by position.
Sunday, May 8, 2016
Age Discrimination by Millennials?
Jason is a 27 year-old recently promoted to operations manager. Donna, 53, held Jason's position for several years before receiving a promotion of her own into a supporting technical role. By all accounts (except Jason's), Donna performed the role very well. She beat budget, achieved high customer satisfaction scores and won awards for her business unit. In addition to her new responsibilities, she is charged with serving as a mentor to Jason.
Jason, however, believes Donna never did the job right and those upper managers at corporate who think she performed well and this job can be done with what he sees are impossible financial constraints are idiots and he's going to prove them wrong (presumably by spending as much as he wants). Jason either ignores or very publicly chides all of Donna's efforts to help him learn the ropes. Jason makes it clear in his rants that if he had the authority, he would fire Donna so he wouldn't have to listen to her anymore. Jason has run off or terminated several over-50 supervisors and replaced them with workers in their 20s. Jason's boss, who is also a millennial and was influential in getting Donna promoted out of the unit, is committed to Jason's potential and Jason is empowered by that support.
This is a true, though slightly modified, example of a disturbing trend. Age discrimination cases have been increasing. Part of this is demographic - there are more older workers today than there were in 2000 due to birthrate trends after World War II - but part is cultural.
I am on record as saying that much of what is being taught in seminars around the country about millennials and generational differences is hokum. For some reason it's acceptable to stereotype individuals based on the year they were born in ways we would never stereotype people based on their skin pigmentation or national origin. (For more on this subject, read my earlier blog).
Overall, I'm bullish on millennials. The purpose of this article is not to indict talented, young, millennial managers, it's to warn business owners that if they are investing in talented, young, millennial managers, they need to keep an eye out for potential biases against older workers. Your confident, aggressive millennial manager could land you in hot water.
When I turned 14, my father told me that for the next 7 or 8 years, he'd be the dumbest human being I ever met, but by the time I was 22, out of school and on my own, I'd eventually figure out he wasn't so dumb after all. He was absolutely right!
My theory about the prevalence of age discrimination by some millennial mangers lies in my dad's observation. Because some millennials have been much slower to mature due to a combination of economic factors that kept them home longer and parenting styles that kept them dependent longer, we have many young adults in their mid-20s who still regard adults in their 50's and 60's the way we did when we were 16. We figured it out by age 22 or 23. Some of them still haven't figured it out by age 29 or 30.
So, my advice is to continue to promote millennials like Jason. It's good for them and good for American business. Jason will either learn that some of those boomers and Xers at the corporate office aren't so dumb after all, or he'll bounce from job to job never advancing nor achieving the potential his millennial boss sees in him. But if you have a Jason, make sure you have some checks and balances in place so that you're not standing before an EEOC officer or a judge trying to explain how after Donna was replaced by Jason, your hiring and firing statistics show a clear trend toward age bias. You won't win that one.
Jason, however, believes Donna never did the job right and those upper managers at corporate who think she performed well and this job can be done with what he sees are impossible financial constraints are idiots and he's going to prove them wrong (presumably by spending as much as he wants). Jason either ignores or very publicly chides all of Donna's efforts to help him learn the ropes. Jason makes it clear in his rants that if he had the authority, he would fire Donna so he wouldn't have to listen to her anymore. Jason has run off or terminated several over-50 supervisors and replaced them with workers in their 20s. Jason's boss, who is also a millennial and was influential in getting Donna promoted out of the unit, is committed to Jason's potential and Jason is empowered by that support.
This is a true, though slightly modified, example of a disturbing trend. Age discrimination cases have been increasing. Part of this is demographic - there are more older workers today than there were in 2000 due to birthrate trends after World War II - but part is cultural.
I am on record as saying that much of what is being taught in seminars around the country about millennials and generational differences is hokum. For some reason it's acceptable to stereotype individuals based on the year they were born in ways we would never stereotype people based on their skin pigmentation or national origin. (For more on this subject, read my earlier blog).
Overall, I'm bullish on millennials. The purpose of this article is not to indict talented, young, millennial managers, it's to warn business owners that if they are investing in talented, young, millennial managers, they need to keep an eye out for potential biases against older workers. Your confident, aggressive millennial manager could land you in hot water.
When I turned 14, my father told me that for the next 7 or 8 years, he'd be the dumbest human being I ever met, but by the time I was 22, out of school and on my own, I'd eventually figure out he wasn't so dumb after all. He was absolutely right!
My theory about the prevalence of age discrimination by some millennial mangers lies in my dad's observation. Because some millennials have been much slower to mature due to a combination of economic factors that kept them home longer and parenting styles that kept them dependent longer, we have many young adults in their mid-20s who still regard adults in their 50's and 60's the way we did when we were 16. We figured it out by age 22 or 23. Some of them still haven't figured it out by age 29 or 30.
So, my advice is to continue to promote millennials like Jason. It's good for them and good for American business. Jason will either learn that some of those boomers and Xers at the corporate office aren't so dumb after all, or he'll bounce from job to job never advancing nor achieving the potential his millennial boss sees in him. But if you have a Jason, make sure you have some checks and balances in place so that you're not standing before an EEOC officer or a judge trying to explain how after Donna was replaced by Jason, your hiring and firing statistics show a clear trend toward age bias. You won't win that one.
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