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What Privacy Do We Have in the Workplace
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1. Should the company be allowed to ask such questions?
In my opinion a majority of these questions are inappropriate for any employer to ask as all but five questions pertain to a persons religious, political or sexual beliefs and practices. although political beliefs are not protected explicitly with respect to the EEOC it can still lead to a disparate impact toward the employee.
The questions focused heavily on lifestyle choices and political affiliations that showed no inclination of having job related implications to prove ability to successfully execute a role. These questions can have an adverse impact on a protected class as what is deemed as an acceptable response would eliminate entire classes of people, specifically women and LGBT.
2. How would a company prove the job relatedness of such a test? When must a company prove job relatedness of the test? Can a company in TX use political information to make decisions about people?
This would be hard to prove due to the high discriminatory tones to these questions. These questions may be considered acceptable with respect to positions that serve the community or class of people they appear to reference. For example, a church may have every right to ask several explicit religious questions that align with the beliefs of the church and can disqualify individuals who do not uphold those beliefs. The same could be true for an organization that is established to serve or counsel a specific class or sector of society where alignment to a supportive position with the respective patrons of the organization is critical. In other words, in order to ask such personal and controversial questions a special and protected service or public offering would need to be evident.
If a claim or accusation is raised that a companies testing practices are unfair, the company would have to prove job relatedness for such a test like this once evidence is established showing an employment practice has an adverse impact to a protected class.
According to the Texas Workforce Commission: http://www.twc.state.tx.us/news/efte/efte.pdf Texas employers are not barred from asking questions regarding political affiliations but are discouraged from doing so. I think this is a common practice where direct questions are avoided (unless applying to work on a specific campaign) but often times there are questions asked that have leading indicators as to ones political affiliations.
3. Should employers be restricted in their use of facebook and web-based information to make decisions of job candidates and current employees?
I believe that employers can make decisions about employees based off of public information available on social media and public web forums as long as it is not discriminatory in nature. There have been several instances in recent years where potential and current employees have lost jobs due to comments or pictures posted on social forums because it sheds a negative light on the company and a role or position they served within the organization.
Things like illegal behavior, defamations of the brand or coworkers, or threats are valid terms for termination or disqualification. As a matter of fact universities are starting to take this into consideration during the admission process and for students who are scholarship recipients or represent the collage in any form or fashion- athletics, debate, student council, etc. Where it is not appropriate to use the public forums and sources of information is to discriminate against a current or potential employee due to any protected classes such as religious beliefs, sexual orientation, race or age.
At this point, individuals should be aware that things posted on public forums is not private and should take care to think before they post or comment.
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Stella, I agree with you that these questions are appalling and I believe that most people would just skip the interview altogether. The sad part is that there are still many companies that ask those types of questions, albeit not as direct as the questions used in this hypothetical scenario. I have been subjected to these types of questions and I would like to offer a few examples. After my graduation with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering, I started job hunting and during a few interviews, I have been asked questions such as:
- "I like your accent, where are you from?"
- "Is English your first language?"
- "I like your name, does it have a special meaning?"
And since I wasn't aware of some of the discriminatory practices in the US, I did not see anything wrong with these questions until I described the interview to some friends. As you can surely predict, those types of questions can be used to determine the race and country of origin of the applicant and be used as a discriminatory measure. I did not get the job and to this day I still do not know if it was because they found someone better suited for the position or if it was due to my skin color, my name or my "lovable" accent.
As for the use of social media to make decisions on job candidates and current employees, I believe it is an acceptable practice. Information displayed on social media is considered as public domain. If a job candidate decides to share unflattering images or comments and make it available for everyone to see, it can show the prospective employer what type of employee the candidate would be and this can be used as a deciding factor in the interview process.
However, it can also be used to gather information about a candidate's race and nationality and be used to discriminate. This is why everyone has to be careful about the information they share online, and review their privacy settings.
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