The New Hiring Pack

[The following is a repeat from a blog of mine on 12/20/2009.]

We got our new corporate mandated hiring pack. We counted up how many total pages are in it. This number also includes the insurance info, the corporate values glossy pamphlet, the take home handbook, and the safety manual. There are 96 pages for each new employee to enjoy.

After the world's worst conference call (complete with stupid questions and idiots who didn't know how to mute their phones resulting in feedback), I called up my branches to make sure they understood what was going on.

They did understand. And then told me that they thought it was stupid and didn't make any sense. I reminded them of my HR mantra: "When you deal with HR, you need to leave common sense outside of the HR doorway."

Here's a smidgen of the new HR policy and hiring pack:

1. We cannot put anyone to work without ensuring that they have a clean criminal background
2. But we cannot have anyone sign the release to do the background check until after they have been offered employment
3. The release form states that they are only to give us their month and day of their birth, but not to give us their year of birth. (that reduces the chance of age discrimination)
4. We need the employee's complete birth date to do the background check and it won't be processed without the employee's year of birth
5. Our company is dedicated to being an Equal Opportunity Employer, and we have to track applicants' race
6. We can't ask an employee to disclose their race, but they can fill out an optional self-identification form
7. If they opt out of self-id, then we have to make a "best guess" as to what their race is
8. We may not actually see the applicant, but still have to determine their race.
9. We cannot use their last name when assigning them a race.

(By the way, according to the US government, a person can be considered to be Hispanic/Latino/Latina regardless of his or her ethnic background. You can be Hispanic/Latino/Latina if you culturally identify yourself with that group.

Also, if one of your parents is Hispanic/Latino/Latina, then you are that race. If your parents are a combination of other races, you are multiracial in the eyes of the US government.)