Navigating the Evolving Legal Landscape of Hiring

This blog post summarizes a recent hiring compliance discussion between Amit Bhatia, Co-founder and CEO of Datapeople, and Renee Jackson, Founder & CEO of HR and Employment Counsel firm Blue Oak Legal. The conversation focused on the complexities of keeping pace and establishing readiness for the evolving legal landscape of hiring. 

The good news? The effort is worth the upside, as leading employers who have embraced a compliance-centric mindset have experienced. They realize “hiring compliance is no longer a box to check or something to fear failing. It is a cornerstone of building a strong employer brand and attracting top talent.” 

Challenges and opportunities

We get it, compliance can be scary. But it doesn’t need to be if you’re focused on the critical challenges and important opportunities. To assist with navigating the evolving legal landscape of hiring, Amit and Renee recommend paying attention to the following areas. Want a snapshot of your own hiring compliance? Check out this free Hiring Compliance Checker.

  • Regulatory Framework and Legal Risks: The webinar highlighted the growing burden of compliance for hiring and talent acquisition (TA) professionals due to a surge of new regulations across various jurisdictions. These regulations govern everything from pay transparency to anti-discrimination practices impacting all aspects of the talent lifecycle.
  • Compliance Challenges in Job Postings: Striking a balance between legal language and employer value proposition copy in job postings is crucial. Job postings serve a dual purpose: attracting candidates and serving as legal documents. Understanding the importance and intent behind the job post (and job description) will improve hiring efficiency and equity.
  • ADA and Job Postings: The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires employers to provide reasonable accommodations to qualified candidates and employees with disabilities. Job postings should clearly outline essential job functions, not just recite a wishlist, to manage expectations and facilitate potential accommodations.
  • Inclusivity and Accessibility: The discussion emphasized the importance of creating an inclusive hiring process that caters to diverse backgrounds and neurodivergent individuals. Proactive transparency in stating accommodation options reflects a company’s commitment to inclusivity.
  • EEO Laws and Compliance: Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) laws prohibit discrimination based on protected characteristics. EEO statements, while not mandatory, can be a valuable tool for demonstrating inclusivity and attracting diverse candidates.
  • FLSA and Compliance: The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) dictates wage and hour regulations. Misclassification of employees (exempt vs. non-exempt) can lead to hefty fines and legal trouble.
  • Pay Transparency Laws: The rise of pay transparency laws across the US and internationally creates challenges for companies in a distributed work environment. Balancing compliance with different state laws and maintaining pay equity is a growing concern. A good rule of thumb: when in doubt, opt for transparency as studies show it increases quality of applicants.
  • Privacy Laws and Requirements: Data privacy regulations like CCPA and GDPR impact candidate data collection and usage. Choosing an ATS system, and other core hiring platforms like Datapeople, with robust compliance features and security certifications, is essential.
  • AI Regulation and Hiring: AI use in hiring is increasingly scrutinized by regulations. Transparency regarding AI deployment, especially in situations lacking human oversight, is crucial for building trust with candidates. This realization has led to the rise of “assistive” intelligence that is responsible by design

How to handle the evolving legal landscape of hiring 

Now that you and your team are aware of the key challenges and opportunities, it’s time to prepare. As Amit and Renee stated, there is opportunity within compliance if you know where to look and prepare accordingly. 

  • Education and Training: Equipping HR professionals with the knowledge and tools to understand and comply with relevant regulations is vital. Platforms that seamlessly upskill while offering self-led training can make this second nature. 
  • Proactive Compliance: Standardizing processes, utilizing compliance software, and proactively disclosing pay ranges and benefits information can help minimize risk. To do this scalably companies have embraced smart-posting and templates.
  • Technology Solutions: Platforms like Datapeople can streamline compliance by integrating with existing ATS systems, encouraging synchronous work through collaboration, and providing automated risk alerts.
  • Legal Expertise: While technology can help automate many aspects of compliance, consulting with employment lawyers like Renee Jackson remains crucial for complex situations.

Stay ahead with a compliance-centric hiring platform

As you have likely already learned hiring compliance can’t be left up to today’s hacks and manual processes. As Renee and Amit stressed, only through standardization of practices, including implementing internal frameworks and processes across HRIS and ATS, can you position your company to thrive compliantly. 

To truly future-proof your hiring we recommend you evaluate a compliance-centric hiring platform like Datapeople. By infusing your hiring process with your employer value proposition, compliance standards and best practices, and “assistive” intelligence, Datapeople secures usage and compliance while also improving efficiency and equity by modernizing the following:

  • Job post writing: Empower all writers to collaborate in swiftly finalizing high-performance job posts in minutes with pre-approved templates and guidance that showcase your company’s compliance standards.
  • Learning and development: Experience-based learning with seamless in-experience upskilling and expert-led certifications and courses to truly instill better behavior.
  • Data-driven optimization: Democratize data to embrace real-time, strategic, data-driven decision-making for every post and in-market requisition hire – every time.
  • Intuitive, ATS-centric workflows: Out-of-the-box integrations ensure a consistent and standardized hiring process is accessible where your team already works – securing data, increasing efficiency, and improving adoption.  

To accelerate your progress, we humbly suggest you watch the webinar. In this webinar, Renee and Amit share more valuable tips to help you stay ahead of the evolving legal landscape of hiring. And if you’re interested in what a compliance-centric hiring platform would mean for your company, our product specialists would love to show you.

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