Now hiring: 'Unreliable' applicants required

Unreliable workers

While recruiting and retaining the best staff remain key issues for HR managers in 2010, the latest legality loophole to rock the HR space seems to push the boundaries in terms of what to look out for when hiring staff.

According to reports in the UK press, a recruitment agency manager has been told that she can't post a job advert for "reliable" staff on the basis that the ad discriminates against "unreliable" applicants.

Nicole Mamo, who lives in Borehamwood in Hertfordshire, England, and runs Devonwood Recruitment, reportedly told the press that she was "well aware" of the legal pitfalls employers need to watch out for when looking to hire new staff.

As such, reports claim Mamo's advert - which was for a GBP£5.80 ($9.40) an hour domestic cleaner position at a local hospital - had been crafted with special care to ensure it was not offensive on the grounds of race, age or sexual orientation.

Ridiculous

However, when Mamo ran the ad past a job centre in Thetford, Norfolk, she was told that the advert was discriminatory, and that she couldn't ask for either "reliable" or "hard working" applicants because it could be offensive to unreliable jobseekers.

Mamo, who has been working in the recruitment space for over 15 years, yesterday told British newspaper the Daily Mail that she had "never heard anything so ridiculous."

She added: "If the matter wasn't so serious I would be laughing out loud."

In fact, Mamo believes that the strict policies being enforced on jobcentres in the UK could cause more damage than good. "Even the employee at the jobcentre agreed it was ridiculous," Mamo told reporters. "[The advisor] explained it was policy because they could get sued for being discriminatory against unreliable people.

"She told me they had already experienced lots of problems with people taking them to court for adverts stating that a job would 'suit a school leaver', which could be defined as discriminatory against other applicants."

Political correctness

Now, a spokesman for the Campaign Against Political Correctness has spoken out about the issue, saying: "Of course employers want reliable workers and job postings should be able to ask for them. If they can't advertise for what they want then the system is clearly misguided."

The Equality and Human Rights Commission have also spoken out about the issue, noting that the move is "in no way in breach of any discrimination law." It warned that Mrs. Mamo should "consider any advice implying that this aspect of her advert was discriminatory as 'very unreliable'."

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