- Breeding
- Horse Breeding, Part 1: The Estrous Cycle
- Horse Breeding, Part 2: Breeding and Gestation
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- Cookies With a Clue For Your Horse
- What do do when the Panic is On to keep our Horses Safe!
- The Top 4 Places to Find Horses for Sale
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- The Correct Horseback Riding Apparel for All Disciplines
- The Riding Tree: Influencing The Horse
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- Equine Experts Send Us Your Best Tip - Win $750 Worth of KAM’s Healthy Horse Products and More
- Horse Grooming
- Mane Saving Ideas
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- Horse Health Issues
- Calcium - More than Just Bone
- The Truth Behind Bran Mash - Its Uses & Disadvantages
- Horse Nutrition: The Basics
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- Training Mythunderstandings: Groundwork: From Basics to Games
- Why Making a Rope Halter Isn't as Easy as They Say
- Horses & History
- Battle-Ready: A History of the War Horse
- Top 5 Strange and Unusual Horses
- Horsing around the Sierra Madre - 1974 Style.
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- Submit Your Grant Proposal To USA Equestrian Trust
- Halter Horse Show
- Equine Experts Send Us Your Best Tip - Win $750 Worth of KAM’s Healthy Horse Products and More
Using Anti-Discrimnation Laws to Find the Best Employees
03/01/2009 - By Seth B. Burgess
Reminds us that the best way to discriminate in hiring is to discriminate by the applicant's ability to perform the duties and responsibilities of the job. Discriminating in any other way, risks elimination of the best candidate for the job.
Many employers think United States anti-discrimination laws do nothing except make the employment process a pain in the neck and make it harder to hire people. Believe it or not, the anti-discrimination laws can actually be used to your advantage and can help you find the best people to hire. To understand how, read on.
First, let's understand that discrimination is not a dirty word. As an employer, you have the absolute right to discriminate against any job applicant who does not have the skills and experience needed to do your job. The very nature of the interview, selection, and hiring process requires you to discriminate against anyone who does not have the skills and experience you need. The anti-discrimination laws do not prohibit this kind of discrimination.
The anti-discrimination laws do prohibit discriminating against any job applicant because of race, color, gender, religious beliefs, national origin, physical disability, or age. In addition, some states and cities have laws prohibiting discrimination based on marital status and sexual orientation.
The laws of the United States are based on English Common Law. English Common Law was created with the needs of business in mind. It was designed to facilitate success in business and to boost the British economy. Believe it or not, anti-discrimination laws share these same goals. They are designed to make it easier for you to find the best candidate for your job and thereby promote the success of your business.
A look at traffic law will help illustrate how laws can make things easier. Imagine for a moment that no law existed to indicate which side of the road we should drive on. In the absence of a universal standard, we would have to negotiate with each driver we met to agree on which side of the road we would use. Would that make driving easier or harder? Most everyone would agree that a law requiring that we all drive on a particular side of the road makes driving easier.
When selecting candidates for a job, it is to your advantage to select the candidate with the best skills and experience. If you use almost any other criteria when choosing who to hire, you run the risk of eliminating the best candidate for the job.
When you discriminate using an illegal criterion, you are making a judgement about a group. "Women can't do this job." "Old people can't do this job." "Blacks can't do this job." "Jews can't do this job." When you make a judgement of this type that eliminates a group of people, you run the risk of eliminating someone who might have better skills and experience than the people who remain outside your discrimination group. By reducing the size of your candidate pool in this way, you make it harder to find the best person for your job.
So, from the employer's point of view, the anti-discrimination laws are a reminder that it is in your best interests to focus on skills and experience and to ignore race, color, gender, religious beliefs, national origin, physical disability, age, etc. Focus on skills and experience, and let the chips fall where they may. Not only will you be following the law, but you will be using the anti-discrimination laws to assure that you have found the best candidate for your job.
Please Note: This overview of anti-discrimination laws should not be used as a substitute for legal advice. Anti-discrimination laws have specific provisions that may or may not apply in specific circumstances. For further information on anti-discrimination laws and other employment law, we recommend The Manager's Legal Handbook by Attorneys Amy DelPo and Lisa Guerin, published by Nolo.
