Posted in Employment Law
Do you currently have a hiring policy for your company?
If you don’t, it’s always a good idea to have one for a couple of reasons. First, you can have that policy reviewed by your attorney and make sure that it fits within the legal framework of your state. Second, it will serve as a protocol for the personnel department to follow and to make sure that. during the hiring process, they all follow the same guidelines even if different staff are involved in the hiring.
If you currently have one, you should be prepared to redraft the policy once the Assembly Bill 168 passes. I talked about this before. Assembly Bill 168, if it passes, would prohibit employers from asking the salary history of job applicants, directly or indirectly, even when the information is asked to serve other legitimate purposes. I gave my opinion in the last video. I think the intention of this proposed law is good; I’m just not so sure about the viability of this bill. Regardless, whether or not this is a good bill we won’t know until it’s implemented for about a year or two, but you need to be prepared. Once this bill is passed and implemented, you need to comply and incorporate it into your hiring process.
So, again, you cannot ask for a salary history- directly or indirectly. However, if a job applicants provide the information voluntarily then you are not in violation of the law. So, what do you do need to do? Well if job applicants offer that information, I would recommend that you document the process so that you can show, in the event that there is a dispute, that the information was not requested by you, and that it was provided by the job applicants voluntarily. So, document the process.
This bill also requires private employers to provide the pay scale for a position to an applicant upon reasonable request. If this bill passes, you will be required to provide information when asked. Even if an employer does not maintain an official pay scale, he may be required to reveal the range of pay for employees in the same position. For the bigger corporations, they probably already have that information in place and ready so it’s not that much an impact for them, but for small business owners that is extra effort that we have to do. Again, the intention of the law is all good, I just don’t know about the viability and how much the burden that will be put on small business owners. Just pass on the information so you’ll be ready in the event that it is passed and you’re required to come up with new policy and procedure.
