Interview questions you must never ask

When you’re recruiting for your business, you’ll want to find the best person for the job as quickly as possible.  But you’ll also be aware that you need to stay on the right side of the law by making sure your interviews aren’t in any way discriminatory.

They can’t appear to be discriminatory either.  Applicants can bring employment tribunal claims for illegal discrimination against the employer who interviewed them, and they can base their claim on the implications behind your questions as much as the questions themselves. 

Most interviewers genuinely intend to give everyone an equal opportunity to succeed, but applying legislation in the interview situation can be tricky.  To give you that extra peace of mind, here are the interview questions that you absolutely must avoid to make sure that you don’t break the law or bring your business into disrepute:   

‘How old are you?’

It’s usually against the law to ask applicants how old they are when they’re applying for a job, either on an application form or during a face-to-face interview. The reason for this is quite simple – it prevents discrimination and means you have to weigh up an applicant’s suitability based purely on ability to do the job.

There are some exceptions to this rule.  The Equality Act permits direct discrimination on the basis of age if there is a Genuine Occupational Requirement.  For example if a role involves serving alcohol and as the law states that individuals must be over the age of 18 to serve alcoholic drinks to customers, it would be acceptable to check that applicants are over 18. 

‘What are your religious views?’

It’s usually unlawful to ask candidates about their religious beliefs at interview. In the majority of cases, the answer will have no impact whatsoever on their ability to carry out a particular job. 

Again though, there are certain cases where a Genuine Occupational Requirement might exist.  For example, if a religious organisation is recruiting a minister, it’s easy to see why candidates must belong to a certain religious group.  And why the role of Halal butcher would require a person of Muslim faith.

However, just because an organisation has a particular religious stance, it doesn’t mean that all employees must share the same views. It would be difficult, for example, to justify the case that a receptionist should hold the same views as it would not be an integral part of the role. 

What is your marital status? 

Any question that is of a personal nature - marital status, age, gender, race, religion, sexual orientation or disability - is not only unethical, but often illegal.

There would be grounds for a discrimination case if decisions are based on this sort of issue – or if they appear to be simply by asking the question. 

 ‘What are your childcare arrangements?’

It’s against the law to ask applicants about their childcare arrangements, even if you know that they have a young family. It’s potentially discriminatory, and will certainly give off the wrong messages about your business. 

It makes sense that you want to know whether your candidates are able to work the hours needed, but it’s all about doing it in the right way. Asking whether there are any issues that would interfere with their regular attendance in the work place is a great (and completely legal) way to find out if your potential employee is in a position to take on the role.

  

 ‘Where were you born?’

As a potential employer you’re responsible for checking that the applicant is eligible to work in the UK before making an offer, and you’ll face a hefty fine if you employ illegal workers.

However, a candidate’s place of birth or ethnic background should not be brought up in an interview setting.  It could provide grounds for a discrimination claim. 

‘How do you feel about managing men?’

If you’re recruiting a manager who will be responsible for a team of men within the workplace, you may assume it would be acceptable to ask a female candidate whether she would feel comfortable about this, and vice versa.

Wrong.  Explore the individual’s ability to deal with the challenges of a particular role, but take care not to imply that gender might have an impact on this.

Instead, ask questions to unearth details of previous management experience, and how the person has dealt with any particular issues along the way.

‘Can you tell me a little more about your disability?’

You’ll be asking interview questions about skills and experience applicants have that could help them succeed in the job.  But it’s illegal to ask them about a condition or disability that would affect their capacity to carry out work.  Don’t ask applicants whether they’ve ever suffered from mental health problems, if they’re taking any medication, why they use a wheelchair, or if they’re likely to need time off work for medical or disability-related reasons. 

However there are instances when it might be acceptable to ask about disability.  For example if the job absolutely couldn’t be carried out by someone with mobility issues, even with reasonable adjustments, then there would be a genuine need to establish whether any such barriers existed. 

For more interview know-how, download our free Expert Interviewer's Guide here.

Do you need help with upcoming recruitment?  With defining what you’re looking for and how you’ll recognise it, wording the advert, coaching in interview skills?  Email The Human Resource on enquiries@thehr.co.uk to arrange a no-obligation chat.

Do your new employees have to sink or swim?

 

 

Recruiting a new member of staff can be time-consuming and costly – so you want them to settle in and start working productively as soon as possible.

But frequently people complain that their start in a new job left them overwhelmed and confused, or bored witless, or abandoned to sink or swim on their own. The result is a demotivated new employee who takes a long time to become productive, or who quickly starts looking for another job. 14% of employees leave in their first year.

How can you make sure that each new recruit settles into the team and turns into a real investment in the future for your growing business?

 

1.   Involve the team

 

Before your new recruit starts work, tell the team about it face-to-face.  Explain the role and how it fits into the bigger picture.  Be prepared to answer questions about how the change could impact on existing roles.

Involve the team in providing a good welcome, to demonstrate that everyone has an important role to play.  For example you could ask what their own first impressions were when they joined and what was missing for them.  Brainstorm together and come up with improvements.

Consider asking a more experienced member of staff to take care of the new person coming on board over the first few weeks– buddying up by showing them around, taking them to lunch, making introductions and offering support.

 

2.   Have the workspace ready

 

If your new employee shows up bright eyed and bushy tailed on day one and discovers that the company isn't technically ready, it doesn’t exactly make them feel valued.

 

The new area should be organised, clean and equipped with everything they'll need to do their job. Make sure everything works – a disconnected PC will only embarrass everyone.

Give one of the team responsibility for organising the workspace and for assembling a welcome pack for new employees.

 

3.   Being sociable

Ideally whoever recruited the new person - as a familiar face - should greet them on arrival on their first day and then introduce the immediate co-workers.

Lunch can be a critical moment for an impressionable newcomer – plan so that new employees never eat their lunch alone on day one. 

Making sure that someone in the team invites them to lunch will make them feel immediately included and help in the first steps toward building new relationships. This could be a great time for a team lunch, giving your employees time to get to know one another informally.

4.   Provide job training

Some jobs can be learned “sitting next to Nellie” – by observing part of the job being done as it’s explained, then practising under supervision, then moving onto another task.  For other jobs, training may need to start by painting the bigger picture before moving on to the detail. 

Give the new person plenty of time to do practical and constructive tasks in between absorbing new material, to allow time for the knowledge to sink in and to start building self confidence.

The better structured the job training is, the more quickly the new person will be able to make a real contribution: and that’s motivating for them.

          5.  Check-in regularly with your new employee

Getting to grips with a new role can be a big challenge and your new employee will have a lot to learn over the coming weeks and months.   Support the newcomer through this with regular check-in conversations and listen to their thoughts and concerns.  Develop an action plan together so that, over time, they’re able to do what the company needs them to do. 

Companies that handle onboarding well bring new people up to speed faster, have better alignment between what new people do and what the company needs them to do, have happier employees, and have less people leaving. 

We can help you get these things right and build an engaged and productive workforce: give us a call today on 07884 475303 or email enquiries@thehr.co.uk.

Continuous performance management: how to do it

Work is speeding up: most business owners are navigating through a fluid and ever-changing world adapting to evolving business needs. 

To be successful and able to pivot in times of change, a more agile alternative to the traditional once-a-year annual appraisal is needed.  How can you introduce more immediacy and make sure there’s a strong  alignment between your company, its managers and its employees? How do you create a more continuous performance management process in your company?

It depends on your priorities as business leader.

1.   Improvement? –i.e. helping both the employee and organisation to get better results. 

Defining and tracking objectives and their outcomes is one of the best things you can do to make sure employees and the organisation achieve better results.  Most importantly, it connects the work of employees into the company’s strategic plan. 

Set up a process to roll this out from the top down. It fits better with the pace of business life for progress with objectives to be reviewed and reset quarterly instead of annually at review time. 

2.   Coaching & Guidance? -  i.e. a framework for coaching, counselling, and motivating employees.

Frequent 1:1 conversations between managers and employees are much better than having coaching discussions once a year during an annual review. You can empower your employees to prepare for their 1:1s and do most of the talking, so they're more effective.

3.   Feedback & Communication? - i.e. enhancing both upward and downward communication

Employees now expect real-time feedback to help them achieve their objectives and to improve their performance.  Relying on an annual conversation for feedback doesn’t work in this fast moving world. 

A better alternative is to make feedback readily available by the company culture you create, where giving and asking for feedback is normal and expected.

You can enable social networking or online feedback tools that both employees and managers can use. 

Employee recognition programmes based on values can be created to help employees get the positive feedback they need in order to keep doing great work. For example, you could give special awards to a few people every year for extraordinary technical accomplishment.

4.   Pay? -  i.e. tying individual performance into salary increases &       bonus calculations.

Ratings at the annual performance review were often used to decide on salary increases and bonus allocations.  Unfortunately performance reviews tied to compensation discourage straight talking and asking for help, undermine collegiality, create a blame-oriented culture, work against co-operative problem solving and easily become politicised. They’re self-defeating and demoralizing for all concerned.

So, many companies have moved away from this direct linkage. You can make salary adjustments based on market rates, new responsibilities and team/company performance, with perhaps a broad element for individual performance at the extremes.

5.   Development Planning? - i.e. training & development for high and low performers.

Traditional performance reviews were often used to identify high and low performers and then plan their development in the future. While this process is important, doing it once a year is not frequent enough as it’s already too late to correct or reinforce.  

Instead, use the information from 1:1 discussions and progress with objectives to identify high performing employees or the employees who need further coaching or training.

6.   Preparing the way for dismissal? -  i.e. documenting poor performance extremes in case of later dismissal.

Occasionally annual performance reviews were misused as a way of creating a paper trail of negative feedback on poor performers in case the company later needed to dismiss and defend itself against an unfair dismissal claim. Unfortunately once this has happened within an organisation, it’s very hard to convince any employees in future that an appraisal discussion is for their benefit!

The sensible way to deal with poor performance is to follow a disciplinary process that deals with these situations separately, and properly documents everything based on the ACAS Code of Practice on Discipline.  

The Human Resource supports you with the changes you need to make in order to manage performance continually throughout the year, so that you make the very best of the people you have.  We help you to be prepared, in control and confident that you’re doing the right thing.   

Email The Human Resource on enquiries@thehr.co.uk or call on 07884 475303 to arrange a no-obligation chat. 

Managing poor performance

Sooner or later any manager will realise they have an under-performing employee in the team.  It's inevitable. Not everyone can do the job they’re in – maybe their life outside work changes, or they were a recruitment mistake, or the demands of the job become too much for their abilities.  Or they simply need more knowledge or information or understanding.

It’s said that in jazz bands, the band is only as good as the worst player; no matter how great some members may be, everyone hears the worst player. The same goes for a company. When you permit weak links to exist without consequence, they drag everyone else down, especially your top performers. If you turn a blind eye and hope the person will go away, things will only get a whole lot worse.  Here’s how to tackle it:

Act promptly

As soon as any actual or potential problem in the way an individual is working becomes apparent, deal with it promptly - don’t wait until the next performance review or the end of probation.

Identify what isn’t working

Be clear about the parts of the job the employee isn’t performing well enough. What sort of things are happening – or not happening?  Gather clear examples and facts.

Talk to the employee informally

Arrange one-to-one time with the under-performing employee.  State the issue, give specific examples and clarify what changes are required. 

Listen, express concern, ask about external factors, their own views about their performance, and what they think the expectations of them are. Ask them about training and skill sets.

Agree with the employee on specific action to improve.  Be clear about the timescale you require the performance to improve within: 2 or 3 months is reasonable depending on the level of job. Write down the action plan or objectives and give the employee a copy.

Be kind. The majority of people want to do well at work and it can be a nightmare experience for them if for some reason their performance isn’t up to scratch. Genuinely wish them well and hope that they succeed.

Training and coaching

There’s an obligation on all employers to give their employees reasonable support, guidance and training in performing their job.  When you’re managing underperformance, the more structured and documented this is the better. One day you might have to prove that it happened!

Follow up

As the action plan is followed up, give the employee the support they might need.  Meet regularly after the initial discussion and provide feedback about their progress. Stick to your agreed timescale unless there are exceptional circumstances.

The next stage

In most cases this informal approach is enough to bring about the necessary improvement.  If it doesn’t you will need to progress to something more formal using your company’s disciplinary procedure. 

Ultimately, if each stage in the procedure is followed correctly and the employee fails to improve to the required standard in the timescale you’ve set, this means you can fairly dismiss.  An advantage in the short term is that the employee realises it’s serious, focuses more and tries harder to improve.

Effect on the team

If you fail to address poor performance, your team will probably become less than enchanted with you as their manager, even when the impact isn’t extreme. One of the most frustrating experiences for a team is when they feel they’re carrying someone who isn’t pulling their weight, and frustration can turn to stress when the manager simply does nothing about it.

It’s important to keep whatever you’re doing confidential.  Your team might not know when poor performance is being tackled. But they certainly do know if it is not being addressed at all.

If you manage poor performance well and manage to raise performance, then this not only instills a sense of achievement for the employee in question, it also gives a great message out to other staff that you are fair and tuned in to what is happening.

You don’t have to put up with poor performance.  But tackling it can be tricky and sometimes stressful. 

The The Human Resource takes the headaches away and supports you in managing individual cases, helping you to be prepared, in control and confident that you’re doing the right thing.  

 

Email The Human Resource on enquiries@thehr.co.uk or call on 07884 475303 to arrange a no-obligation chat. A free E-book on Managing Poor Performance is available on our website www.thehr.co.uk.