Doofus Of The Day #314

Today's Doofus award goes to equal opportunity employment bureaucrats in England.

When it comes to hiring staff, there are plenty of legal pitfalls employers need to watch out for these days.

So recruitment agency boss Nicole Mamo was especially careful to ensure her advert for hospital workers did not offend on grounds of race, age or sexual orientation.

However, she hadn't reckoned on discriminating against a wholly different section of the community - the completely useless.

When she ran the ad past a jobcentre, she was told she couldn't ask for 'reliable' and 'hard-working' applicants because it could be offensive to unreliable people.

'In my 15 years in recruitment I haven't heard anything so ridiculous,' Mrs Mamo said yesterday.

'If the matter wasn't so serious I would be laughing out loud.

'Unfortunately it's extremely alarming. I need people who are hardworking and reliable - and I am pleased to discriminate in that way. If they're not then I really can't use them. The reputation of my business is on the line.

'Even the woman at the jobcentre agreed it was ridiculous but explained it was policy because they could get sued for being dicriminatory against unreliable people.

'She told me they'd had lots of problems with people taking them to court for adverts stating something like "would suit school leaver".'

. . .

Mrs Mamo, a divorced mother of two, added: 'I had to battle to have "must speak English", which they also said was discriminatory.

'In the end, I had to write "must speak English due to health and safety reasons" because they're dealing with hazardous materials.'

There's more at the link.

Ye Gods and little fishes! So one can't advertise for a 'reliable' worker anymore? What other kind of worker would one want to hire?






Peter