Is Your Company Practicing Systemic Discrimination?

Most companies don't discriminate in the recruitment, hiring and promotion of their employees --- or do they?

While willful discrimination is rarely found in corporate America anymore, subtle forms of discrimination occur frequently. Both the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) are taking aggressive steps to stop it.

The problem is systemic discrimination, defined as ' a pattern of discrimination throughout a place of employment that is a result of interrelated actions, policies or procedures. ' Almost always, the companies practicing it are unaware of it. However, intent is irrelevant; if systemic discrimination is found to occur in hiring or promotion practices, the penalties to a company's reputation and bottom line can be significant.

The EEOC's initiative to fight systemic discrimination, E-RACE (Eradicating Racism and Colorism from Employment), was driven by employers' increased use of background checks, employment tests and credit scores in determining employment or promotion eligibility. If the criteria being judged aren't part of the job requirements, a disproportionate number of minorities or females may be excluded from consideration.

Three factors determine whether or not a hiring or promotion practice is discriminatory. The practice must be job-related; necessary to complete the job; and validated according to Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures standards.

Are your practices compliant? If you're not sure, conduct a thorough analysis of your practices. These steps and recommendations will guide you through that analysis:

• Carefully review all job descriptions. They must include a detailed description of the job qualifications.
• Examine all aspects of hiring practices by job type. Carefully evaluate each step in the selection process to ensure each step is necessary, fair and consistently applied. For example, you can't use a literacy test as a criterion for selection if literacy is not a qualification for the job.
• Don't confuse ' recruiting ' with ' hiring. ' A broad pool of applicants is great, but doesn't mean your hiring and promotion practices aren't discriminatory. The EEOC and OFCCP will evaluate each stage of the selection process to determine if candidates evaluated and selected were adversely impacted due to race, ethnicity or sex.
• Work in lockstep with your attorneys. Legal counsel should participate in the analysis. They will advise how to proceed if any problems are detected.
• Fix the problem. Act quickly to address and correct any discriminatory practices.

While most likely unintentional, systemic discrimination is nevertheless damaging to a company and its applicants. Finding and fixing flawed practices will avoid costly litigation and negative publicity - as well as protect your reputation with employees and prospects.