Should HR Practitioners know what they are doing in an interview setting? Whose role is it anyway?
As Human Resources Practitioners, we are often called upon to be the organizational role model for employee behaviour. It’s easy, then, to become the target for how to do things wrong, when the expectation is that the HR Practitioner should always be doing things right. Right?
Why is HR expected to be perfect? It is because it is so important to organizational success!
A great example of this comes from the following article which reveals that twenty percent of HR practitioners were involved in asking illegal interview questions! How is that even possible? If HR cannot get it right, what are supervisors expected to do?
Click here to view the article.
The article states that, in some cases, HR practitioners are involved in asking questions that focus on religious preferences and practices, disabilities, and gender based issues. When this occurs, the article recommends correcting the situation immediately by addressing the question of concern and ensuring that the person being interviewed knows that the question asked was inappropriate and is not an acceptable practice. Is this solution a little bit of “too little, too late”?
The article has some great comments – many of them harshly critical of the role of HR in the interview process, including the perception that HR practitioners are ‘liars’ and, “Liars are not leaders”. If HR practitioners are regarded as liars then what does that say about the rest of the organization as represented by HR? The article and the comments may make for uncomfortable reading and show how quickly HR can lose credibility if we do not know what we are doing! If HR does not have credibility, then what is its value?
Discussion Questions:
- What are three practices that HR must include in preparing for interviews?
- How will I address members of an interview panel when they go ‘off script’ or outside of legal boundaries?
- Have I been in an interview where the HR practitioner has made me feel uncomfortable?
- How will I lead in the role of HR to avoid being called a liar?
- How do I continually improve the credibility of HR?
- What will I do to address issues of accommodation when they come up in an interview setting?