Today’s Top HR Tip…Start collating your evidence

September 30th, 2008

IT’S ALL IN THE PAPERWORK…

Yes, we know we’ve all done it – you’ve finally got a great job applicant in front of you after spending all morning interviewing every misfit under the sun, and before you know it the offer’s out of your mouth and they’re starting on Monday! Somehow that recruitment paperwork never quite gets done, and you’re ready to move on to the next pressing people problem.

Easily done we know, but unfortunately in today’s increasingly legislated work environment, such a lack of paperwork has the potential to leave you in a very risky position. Whilst we’re all for the paperless office, sadly when it comes to HR records, this is one area where a lack of paperwork will do far more harm than good.

Ask yourself this: If you haven’t got scoring criteria to prove it, how can you show that the decision not to appoint the only male applicant wasn’t because of his sex but because he scored lower than the successful applicant who just happened to be a woman? Or argue your way out of the £10,000 fine for employing an illegal worker, if you haven’t taken a photocopy of what you thought was an authentic passport?

A few minutes spent on carefully thought out paperwork now, can save hours, not to mention £s, later (remember there’s no cap on compensation payments for discrimination claims which can be brought even at the job advert stage!). It needn’t be anything fancy or long-winded – a simple tick-list can do the job quite nicely and will also ensure that you don’t have enough space to write anything rude or insulting about the candidates that could come back to haunt you!

To help you get a manageable paperwork system in place, Salgado Investigations recommend the following tips:

• Keep to one page per candidate and use bullet points with a space for a tick, cross or mark out of say 5
• Set out each of your essential criteria such as: degree in X, knowledge of Y, etc. as a simple tick box – they either have or they haven’t so why complicate things?
• Decide upon scoring criteria for testing key skills and capabilities, with say 5 as meets perfectly to 1 as little/no match and agree a cut-off pass mark before the interviews.
• Don’t forget to have housekeeping reminders to work through at the bottom, so you can ensure that you remember to ask about all those little details like booked holidays and notice periods; but more importantly, tick boxes to show you’ve double-checked their criminal records statement, you’ve seen and photocopied their proof of eligibility to work, and any essentials like driving licence or exam certificates.
• Complete one for each candidate and keep securely for 6 months just in case anything is ever questioned.
•  And finally, take great delight in shredding once the tribunal time limit’s passed!

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