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  • Over the past few years, a growing number of states and cities have banned the practice of using salary history to screen potential new employees. If you’re an employer in New Jersey, you’re now included in that trend. 

    Starting in 2020, it’s not a good idea for New Jersey employers to ask job applicants how much they made. The Garden State is now one of 17 states and multiple cities to outlaw pay history questions. While similar in many aspects, New Jersey’s version of the law does have some key differences that can help employers avoid potential penalties.

    A New Jersey employer asking for salary history, which is now banned in the state. 

    The Impacts of New Jersey’s Salary History Ban

    As with other states with salary history bans in place, Bill A1094 prohibits New Jersey employers from using past wages, benefits, and other salary history-related information to vet potential job applicants. The law also prevents employers from requiring an applicant’s salary history to satisfy any minimum or maximum criteria.

    If by chance an employer breaks the rules set in Bill A1094, the law has set penalties in place. Any employers who violate salary history ban are subject to civil penalties. These penalties scale based on the number of times an employer breaks the rules:

    • Up to $1,000 for the first violation
    • $5,000 for the second violation
    • $10,000 for each subsequent violation

    Exceptions

    Unlike other state and city bans on salary history inquiries, there are a few exceptions where employers are protected in New Jersey. The state’s ban includes a couple of examples of expressly permitted activities where the employer would not be in violation of the law.

    Voluntary release

    The law does not penalize employers if applicants voluntarily provide their salary history. Of course, this disclosure must be done by an applicant’s choice alone – it cannot be prompted or coerced at all. If this information is provided, the employer may then verify that the information provided is accurate and use it to determine compensation.

    Post-offer requests

    If an employer makes an offer of employment to an applicant that includes an explanation of the overall compensation package, the employer may request that the applicant provide a written authorization to confirm their salary history. If the authorization is given, this information can include both compensation and benefits.

    Hiring internal or past employees

    The law does not extend to any internal applicants with regards to promotions or transfers. As such, employers may consider salary information for applicants who already work at their company. In addition, employers may consider past salary history information if an applicant used to work for them, but only the information that they already have on file.

    Federal law exclusions

    If a federal law requires an applicant to disclose their salary history (or requires an employer to verify that history), an employer will not be penalized for collecting and using that information.

    Incentive or commission plans

    If an applicant is applying for a position with commission or incentive-based compensation components, an employer may inquire about past incentive and commission terms. However, these inquiries cannot extend to what the applicant’s earnings were under a previous employer’s plans.

    Collective bargaining agreements

    Employers may communicate with applicants about wages or salary rates if the job has certain salary guidelines set by collective bargaining agreements or laws.

    Evaluate Your Hiring Process to Protect Your Business

    While the salary history ban is a more recent law, it’s not the only regulation that employers need to consider during the hiring process. There are a variety of illegal interview questions that are off-limits for employers, such as inquiries about national origin and pregnancy status. As such, it’s important for employers to take the following steps to examine their internal processes to prevent possible violations.

    • Evaluate job applications, recruiter instructions, and background-check instructions to eliminate improper information requests
    • Examine interview templates or guidelines (and establish them if they do not already exist)
    • Treat every candidate the same during the interview process
    • Have more than one interviewer in the room and take notes to document the results

    Need an HR partner to prepare your business for new laws and other business administration headaches? Contact GMS’s New Jersey office or one of our other locations today to talk to one of our HR experts.

  • The hiring process is already difficult enough. The time, money, and energy it takes to conduct a thorough search for the right people is a serious commitment. Unfortunately, unconscious bias adds yet another hurdle for both your company and potential job candidates.

    The goal of hiring is to find the right person for your company. Unconscious bias can cause your company to eliminate or overvalue prospects based on first impressions, preconceived notions, and other factors that aren’t true indicators of talent. Regardless of why and how they occur, it’s important to mitigate the impact of unconscious bias so that you can focus on what matters: hiring the best talent for your business.

    A job interview conducted with practices that help eliminate unconscious bias from the hiring process.

    What Can Unconscious Bias Affect in the Hiring Process?

    First and foremost, unconscious bias can cost you the best candidate. In a pool of prospects, you may unwittingly eliminate a top candidate because of certain predispositions or unintended consequences from certain hiring practices. By updating your hiring process, you can increase your odds of identifying the perfect people for open positions. 

    It’s important to note that bias extends beyond practices deemed discriminatory. In addition to explicit bias against race, gender, disability, and more, there are many other implicit biases. These unconscious biases may seem harmless at first, but can cause people to eliminate certain candidates or overvalue others. For example, certain hiring practices may not intend to exclude certain groups of people. However, these actions may cause companies to unknowingly make decisions based on secondary or tertiary factors instead of identifying who is right for your company. 

    8 Ways to Help Prevent Unconscious Bias in the Hiring Process

    It can be difficult to eliminate unconscious bias – it’s called unconscious bias, after all. However, there are some actions you can take throughout the hiring process to help remove these involuntary actions as you focus on finding the best possible candidate for your business.

    Evaluate word choice in job descriptions

    Words matter. Job descriptions play a critical role in attracting top talent. However, certain language can dissuade certain applicants from applying if you’re not careful. 

    For example, using words like “guys” or “journeyman” in a job description can act as a red flags to female prospects. There are also less obvious gender-biased language that may deter qualified candidates. According to social role theory, certain word choices can reflect unconscious biases based on stereotypical roles and behaviors. As such, terms like “competitive” are typically geared to appeal to men, whereas words like “collaborative” attract more women than men.

    The best way to avoid accidental bias in job descriptions is to carefully examine how they’re written. Once you spot a potential issue, experiment with wording to find an acceptable replacement that appeals to a wider audience. While certain terms are easier to identify than others, there are tools available to help in this endeavor. Both Gender Decoder and Textio can evaluate text to help spot questionable words to prepare your job descriptions for everyone. 

    Find new talent sources

    When it comes time to hire a new employee, many companies use the same methods that have worked in the past. This process makes sense to a degree – don’t fix what isn’t broken. However, this mindset also prevents you from potentially opening up your recruitment and sourcing efforts to a more diverse audience.

    If you’ve turned to the same sources for years, odds are you’ll get more of the same pool of applicants in the future. By widening your search, you can open your company up to a more diverse group of talent than before. In addition, research shows that diversity is good for business. A McKinsey study analyzed 366 public companies and discovered that the organizations were “more likely to have financial returns above their respective national industry medians.”

    This doesn’t mean you should abandon past sourcing methods – LinkedIn and referrals are tried and true for a reason. Instead, consider increasing the visibility of your openings by utilizing new resources, whether that means listing jobs on a career advancement platform like Jopwell, partnering with different colleges, and identifying other ways to diversify your applicant pool.

    Consider “blind” resume reviews

    It doesn’t take much to develop a preconceived notion about a candidate. In fact, unconscious bias can start as soon as you spot some basic information. 

    Names, educational backgrounds, and locations can all trigger hidden biases that can both favor and disfavor candidates for a multitude of reasons. These justifications can be as silly as a candidate went to a rival college – you never know when the Ohio State-Michigan rivalry will rear its ugly head. Research also indicates that people with foreign-sounding names are 28 percent less likely to land an interview than those with more “Anglo”-sounding names. 

    To avoid these issues, take a blind approach to reviewing resumes and block out any surface demographic characteristics that don’t directly impact the quality of a potential employee. Removing details like names can help you focus on what matters – is this person qualified for this job? This way you and anyone else reviewing resumes can concentrate on important details instead of adding false value to secondary criteria.

    Standardize interviews

    Not only can establishing a set list for every candidate speed up the hiring process, it can also help you avoid any accidental bias.

    Unstructured interviews without any defined questions can put candidates on different playing fields. One interviewee may provide a great answer to one question, but you can’t compare those responses if you ask different questions or present them in a different manner. Standardized interviews allow you to minimize bias by focusing on important factors and being able to analyze each candidate as evenly as possible.

    Avoid snap judgments

    According to Monster, “job applicants have on average just 6 minutes and 25 seconds during the first meeting to impress interviewers.” Other studies suggest that some interviewers made hiring decisions after just 15 seconds. First impressions are important, but banking on initial observations is quick path to unconscious bias.

    Simply put, it’s easy to judge people at first glance. The problem is that interviewers shouldn’t let superficial factors cloud the entire interview. It’s crucial to focus on factors that will directly impact job performance instead of personal details. For example, visible tattoos, hair color, and body weight can all play into a person’s first impression, but shouldn’t affect a candidate’s standing unless it’s a direct negative for the position. 

    Snap judgments also go both ways. There can be situations where an interview may be unconsciously biased toward a candidate because of a first impression. Even something as simple as going to the same high school or being proud Corgi owners can add a sense of “likability” that may color your perception of a candidate’s answers. Instead be hyper-aware that the quality of the interview should focus on a candidate’s qualifications and fit for the company, not some secondary factor.

    Don’t ask for salary history

    While you may be curious to know what candidates earned in the past, that information may do more harm than good. First, certain states have made it illegal to ask applicants about their salary history. Even if you’re in a state that still allows the practice, that information can lead to incorrect misconceptions about certain candidates.

    One reason for this is that it can be easy to try and relate people’s current and past salaries to their abilities and level of responsibility. However, that’s not necessarily the case. Every company approaches compensation differently, so it’s impossible to truly know if a lower salary is an indication of lesser talent or if employees are applying because it’s a better opportunity.

    For example, the presence of unconscious gender bias plays a part in why women’s median annual earnings are $9,766 less than men’s. In the end, it can be close to impossible to definitively use salary history to judge a candidate’s ability. Instead, it’s best to avoid the question and remove any possibility of unconscious bias based on the results.

    Provide a salary range

    While asking for salary history can prove problematic, providing a salary range is a good way to keep everyone on the same page. Salary ranges provide a few distinct benefits. Notably, they allow you to set a salary expectation upfront and streamline or even eliminate salary negotiations from the hiring process. An added benefit of this tactic is that it can help eliminate some unexpected biases as well.

    As with asking for a salary history, the salary negotiation process can create some unconscious preconceptions that aren’t a true indicator of a candidate’s ability or fit. For example, some interviewers may find it odd if talented candidates ask for notably less than what you expect to pay them. A possible reaction would be to assume that these candidates aren’t as good as they seem in an interview and on paper. They may simply come from a business that paid them notably less – especially if their salaries are impacted by the aforementioned pay gap. By setting a salary range, you can avoid these questions altogether and build trust with candidates who appreciate transparency. 

    Use skill assessments and work sample tests

    If you’re trying to find the best possible person for a certain role, it may be best to test out their skills first. Resumes, interviews, and other sources can provide great insight. Unfortunately, it’s no secret that some candidates will exaggerate their abilities. However, you may be more likely to believe them based on a snap judgment or some other preconceived notion. Work sample tests and skill assessments can give you additional evidence of just how well a candidate can perform a job or if they have what it takes to succeed.

    If you want an indicator of whether an employee has what it takes, skill assessments can give you extra insight into that person’s capabilities. From personality tests to situational judgment assessments, these examinations can help you confirm or deny any initial suspicions so that your company isn’t banking on gut decisions alone. The exact skill assessments you choose can vary greatly. To help, TalentLyft provides a comprehensive list of different skill assessment tools available.

    Work sample tests offer extra insight in that you’ll get to see how a candidate may do with a real project or task. These tests are different than requesting past work samples – you have full control over what is assigned. In addition, the test you use for an opening should be the same for every candidate who makes it to that point in the process. This will allow you to compare each candidate based on the quality of their work instead of outside factors.

    Identify the Perfect Candidates for Your Company

    The hiring process is complicated. While it may seem simple – find and hire the best candidate – there are a multitude of factors that impact every step of the process. However, all the time and effort spent is worth it when you find that perfect person to fill a position.

    Of course, there are always ways to help streamline and improve the hiring process. GMS can help you create a new, more efficient hiring process to not only help you find the right people for your business, but also help you use your time to focus on growing your business in other ways. Contact GMS today to talk about employee recruitment and onboarding management.