Things an employer cannot ask during an interview...
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When in the market for an escort? :rolleyes: Seriously, it should be up to the employer.
We are a big screwed up dysfunctional psychotic happy family - some more screwed up, others more happy, but everybody's psychotic joint venture definition of CP
My first real C# project | Linkify!|FoldWithUs! | sighistpeterchen wrote:
Seriously, it should be up to the employer.
Why? That is how it was in the past and it led to a lot of bias.
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Shog9 wrote:
And with that, Paul closed his browser, sipped his herbal tea, fixed the flower in his hair, and smiled brightly at the multitude of cute, furry animals flocking around the grassy hillside where he sat coding Ruby on his Mac...
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So my boss is doing an interview for a few coop students (coop is like internship in the USA). I gave him a question and said he should ask it, this question was: Give the intervewee a Tank, Lava Lamp, Cake and a Balloon. And then ask the person what they'd do with it. To test it out my boss asked us developers what we'd do, and instantly one person said: "Run the Customers over with the tank and then go back to work and celebrate by eating cake, and decorate your desk with baloons and lavalamps". Another said "Shoot the customers with the tank, use the cake as a diversion so management doesn't find out, scare the secrataryoffice administrator with the baloon and then use the lava lamp to make your desk look cool." We had a good laugh... we then started talking about what you "cannot" ask during an interview. Which include: -Person Age -Persons Religion -Persons Political Standing -Persons Sex The 1st and the last bugged me as I believe an employer should have total control over who they hire, and why they hire them. But asking someone their "Sex"... in Canada, if you ask someone their "Sex" and you do NOT hire them, you can be: Sued, taken to a tribunal, arrested and many other dumb things. Stupid laws. No wonder so many people are confused, no one ever asked them what sex they were :laugh:
MrBic wrote:
The 1st and the last bugged me as I believe an employer should have total control over who they hire, and why they hire them.
It's funny you say this, because I see it differently, a person's sex and age have little, if anything, to do with their ability to perform a job; obviously, certain jobs require certain sexes/ages (e.g., a woman would have a hard time being a male stripper, and a 90 year old, might have a difficult time being a spotter at a local gym). Yet their religion and/or political standing might cause them to question and/or refuse a job or not perform as well as they might, given various situations. These are things that are not physical limitations, nor relate to one's experience for a given position, but rather personal decisions that can directly impact the job in question. Just my two cents; But what do I know.
:..::. Douglas H. Troy ::..
Bad Astronomy |VCF|wxWidgets|WTL -
Why wouldn't you hire someone based on age and sex?
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Shog9 wrote:
And with that, Paul closed his browser, sipped his herbal tea, fixed the flower in his hair, and smiled brightly at the multitude of cute, furry animals flocking around the grassy hillside where he sat coding Ruby on his Mac...
Paul Watson wrote:
Why wouldn't you hire someone based on age and sex?
If you office building does not have a separate ladies restroom, and law requires that there be a separate one if you have women employees, you may want to hire men only (and vice-versa). Age - I don't know. I don't think it should affect someone's employment prospects. Of course if a 7 year old walked in, or a 103 year old - that'd be a whole different situation.
Regards, Nish
Nish’s thoughts on MFC, C++/CLI and .NET (my blog)
C++/CLI in Action (*E-Book is out, Print version April 6th*) -
peterchen wrote:
Seriously, it should be up to the employer.
Why? That is how it was in the past and it led to a lot of bias.
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Shog9 wrote:
And with that, Paul closed his browser, sipped his herbal tea, fixed the flower in his hair, and smiled brightly at the multitude of cute, furry animals flocking around the grassy hillside where he sat coding Ruby on his Mac...
Paul Watson wrote:
That is how it was in the past and it led to a lot of bias.
Back in Trivandrum, some of my friends would only recruit good looking chicks - they claimed that it helped improve the mood in the office! :rolleyes:
Regards, Nish
Nish’s thoughts on MFC, C++/CLI and .NET (my blog)
C++/CLI in Action (*E-Book is out, Print version April 6th*) -
MrBic wrote:
It's just funny how it's almost illegal to ask it during an interview.
but why would you WANT to ask it, EXCEPT for using bias? If you don't care, don't ask. Every question asked should have a purpose, some may be to relax or introduce the employee, but I see no reason to ask those two questions except in cases of using it to bias against the interviewee. As for asking the question, my prior employer asked all the illegal questions. He always got away with it. In most cases, the interviewee isn't going to work there, and will have nothing to do with that employer ever again, so their best bet is to warn all their friends away and find someone else to be employed with. There were a few suits filed, one he was accused of biasing against a hispanic, so he sent a list of all the hispanic surnames to the court, even though most were married to hispanic, but not hispanic themselves. There are all kinds of ways to twist the results of the suit too.
_________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)
Purely by chance, you are currently employing only Gender A. Hiring Gender B would allow the new employee to demand separate restrooms, which requires major changes to the plumbing, or for which you would need to move to a new office. Your area of business benefits from long-term / lifelong employment, but the place already looks like a geriatric ward. To give your company a future, you decide to hire young people. You run a bar catering to 25-35 year old male singles. You are hiring pilots. Your best clients are men-hating lesbians. Your company, parent company or your contry has regulations that give older people better benefits, or limits your ability to fire them. You can't force someone to hire or even keep an interviewee.
We are a big screwed up dysfunctional psychotic happy family - some more screwed up, others more happy, but everybody's psychotic joint venture definition of CP
My first real C# project | Linkify!|FoldWithUs! | sighist -
Paul Watson wrote:
Why wouldn't you hire someone based on age and sex?
If you office building does not have a separate ladies restroom, and law requires that there be a separate one if you have women employees, you may want to hire men only (and vice-versa). Age - I don't know. I don't think it should affect someone's employment prospects. Of course if a 7 year old walked in, or a 103 year old - that'd be a whole different situation.
Regards, Nish
Nish’s thoughts on MFC, C++/CLI and .NET (my blog)
C++/CLI in Action (*E-Book is out, Print version April 6th*)Nishant Sivakumar wrote:
If you office building does not have a separate ladies restroom, and law requires that there be a separate one if you have women employees, you may want to hire men only (and vice-versa).
Surely the law requires there are separate toilets for men and women (plus extra, accesible toilets for the disabled) irrespective of whether there are men and women working in an office? What kind of office building only has one sex in it? I can only think of army barracks. Or is this a legacy situation in India from when women weren't allowed to work? (Did that happen in India?) And this post doesn't cover unisex toilet facilities as some countries may allow.
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Shog9 wrote:
And with that, Paul closed his browser, sipped his herbal tea, fixed the flower in his hair, and smiled brightly at the multitude of cute, furry animals flocking around the grassy hillside where he sat coding Ruby on his Mac...
-
So my boss is doing an interview for a few coop students (coop is like internship in the USA). I gave him a question and said he should ask it, this question was: Give the intervewee a Tank, Lava Lamp, Cake and a Balloon. And then ask the person what they'd do with it. To test it out my boss asked us developers what we'd do, and instantly one person said: "Run the Customers over with the tank and then go back to work and celebrate by eating cake, and decorate your desk with baloons and lavalamps". Another said "Shoot the customers with the tank, use the cake as a diversion so management doesn't find out, scare the secrataryoffice administrator with the baloon and then use the lava lamp to make your desk look cool." We had a good laugh... we then started talking about what you "cannot" ask during an interview. Which include: -Person Age -Persons Religion -Persons Political Standing -Persons Sex The 1st and the last bugged me as I believe an employer should have total control over who they hire, and why they hire them. But asking someone their "Sex"... in Canada, if you ask someone their "Sex" and you do NOT hire them, you can be: Sued, taken to a tribunal, arrested and many other dumb things. Stupid laws. No wonder so many people are confused, no one ever asked them what sex they were :laugh:
MrBic wrote:
-Person Age -Persons Religion -Persons Political Standing -Persons Sex
Good. India should strongly bring this into its realm as well. It would address the concern briefed here: http://viewsreviews.wordpress.com/2006/07/20/fate-of-freshers/[^]
Vasudevan Deepak Kumar Personal Homepage Tech Gossips
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peterchen wrote:
Seriously, it should be up to the employer.
Why? That is how it was in the past and it led to a lot of bias.
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Shog9 wrote:
And with that, Paul closed his browser, sipped his herbal tea, fixed the flower in his hair, and smiled brightly at the multitude of cute, furry animals flocking around the grassy hillside where he sat coding Ruby on his Mac...
Paul Watson wrote:
Why?
Paul Watson wrote:
That is how it was in the past and it led to a lot of bias.
Can these regulations really remove the bias?
We are a big screwed up dysfunctional psychotic happy family - some more screwed up, others more happy, but everybody's psychotic joint venture definition of CP
My first real C# project | Linkify!|FoldWithUs! | sighist -
MrBic wrote:
The 1st and the last bugged me as I believe an employer should have total control over who they hire, and why they hire them.
It's funny you say this, because I see it differently, a person's sex and age have little, if anything, to do with their ability to perform a job; obviously, certain jobs require certain sexes/ages (e.g., a woman would have a hard time being a male stripper, and a 90 year old, might have a difficult time being a spotter at a local gym). Yet their religion and/or political standing might cause them to question and/or refuse a job or not perform as well as they might, given various situations. These are things that are not physical limitations, nor relate to one's experience for a given position, but rather personal decisions that can directly impact the job in question. Just my two cents; But what do I know.
:..::. Douglas H. Troy ::..
Bad Astronomy |VCF|wxWidgets|WTLDouglas Troy wrote:
a woman would have a hard time being a male stripper
Thanks alot, my lunch is now on my new LCD....
Matt Newman
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Why wouldn't you hire someone based on age and sex?
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Shog9 wrote:
And with that, Paul closed his browser, sipped his herbal tea, fixed the flower in his hair, and smiled brightly at the multitude of cute, furry animals flocking around the grassy hillside where he sat coding Ruby on his Mac...
You might have an aging workforce in your company and you want to hire some younger people who will have some time to become experts in your systems, to offer up new views on how to do things, or simply add diversity. Likewise you may want older people for differents views, broader experience, or diversity.
BW
Quick to judge, quick to anger, slow to understand.
Ignorance and prejudice and fear walk hand in hand.
-- Neil Peart -
Purely by chance, you are currently employing only Gender A. Hiring Gender B would allow the new employee to demand separate restrooms, which requires major changes to the plumbing, or for which you would need to move to a new office. Your area of business benefits from long-term / lifelong employment, but the place already looks like a geriatric ward. To give your company a future, you decide to hire young people. You run a bar catering to 25-35 year old male singles. You are hiring pilots. Your best clients are men-hating lesbians. Your company, parent company or your contry has regulations that give older people better benefits, or limits your ability to fire them. You can't force someone to hire or even keep an interviewee.
We are a big screwed up dysfunctional psychotic happy family - some more screwed up, others more happy, but everybody's psychotic joint venture definition of CP
My first real C# project | Linkify!|FoldWithUs! | sighistpeterchen wrote:
You can't force someone to hire or even keep an interviewee.
The government can ...
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Purely by chance, you are currently employing only Gender A. Hiring Gender B would allow the new employee to demand separate restrooms, which requires major changes to the plumbing, or for which you would need to move to a new office. Your area of business benefits from long-term / lifelong employment, but the place already looks like a geriatric ward. To give your company a future, you decide to hire young people. You run a bar catering to 25-35 year old male singles. You are hiring pilots. Your best clients are men-hating lesbians. Your company, parent company or your contry has regulations that give older people better benefits, or limits your ability to fire them. You can't force someone to hire or even keep an interviewee.
We are a big screwed up dysfunctional psychotic happy family - some more screwed up, others more happy, but everybody's psychotic joint venture definition of CP
My first real C# project | Linkify!|FoldWithUs! | sighistpeterchen wrote:
Hiring Gender B would allow the new employee to demand separate restrooms, which requires major changes to the plumbing, or for which you would need to move to a new office.
I am flabbergasted you and Nish seem to live in countries that don't already demand separate facilities irrespective of employee makeup. Here in Ireland a building has to have facilities for both genders and for the disabled. Same back home in South Africa. Do these companies that only have male toilets only have male clients that visit? What happens when a female client visits?
peterchen wrote:
Your area of business benefits from long-term / lifelong employment, but the place already looks like a geriatric ward. To give your company a future, you decide to hire young people.
Weak argument.
peterchen wrote:
You run a bar catering to 25-35 year old male singles.
You'll find this sorts itself out without recourse to filtering CVs.
peterchen wrote:
You are hiring pilots.
Eh? Which gender is incapable of piloting a vehicle?
peterchen wrote:
Your best clients are men-hating lesbians.
:rolleyes: Come on peterchen.
peterchen wrote:
Your company, parent company or your contry has regulations that give older people better benefits, or limits your ability to fire them.
So hire young people and fire them before they get too old? :laugh:
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Shog9 wrote:
And with that, Paul closed his browser, sipped his herbal tea, fixed the flower in his hair, and smiled brightly at the multitude of cute, furry animals flocking around the grassy hillside where he sat coding Ruby on his Mac...
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Paul Watson wrote:
Why?
Paul Watson wrote:
That is how it was in the past and it led to a lot of bias.
Can these regulations really remove the bias?
We are a big screwed up dysfunctional psychotic happy family - some more screwed up, others more happy, but everybody's psychotic joint venture definition of CP
My first real C# project | Linkify!|FoldWithUs! | sighistI know what you are saying and I want to agree but I've seen it in practice and unlike us rational folk there are nutters who filter based on the sex written down in a CV or the sex the name implies. Give people a chance, don't let them be excluded before they get through the door. Even the nutters will find themselves pleasently surprised when their preconcieved notion about a genders ability to do a job is shattered by a stunning interviewee. The law is meant to give the person a chance and eeks out a measure against bias.
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Shog9 wrote:
And with that, Paul closed his browser, sipped his herbal tea, fixed the flower in his hair, and smiled brightly at the multitude of cute, furry animals flocking around the grassy hillside where he sat coding Ruby on his Mac...
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You might have an aging workforce in your company and you want to hire some younger people who will have some time to become experts in your systems, to offer up new views on how to do things, or simply add diversity. Likewise you may want older people for differents views, broader experience, or diversity.
BW
Quick to judge, quick to anger, slow to understand.
Ignorance and prejudice and fear walk hand in hand.
-- Neil PeartThat isn't hiring based on age. That is hiring based on diversity, which the law allows. So if an old guy comes in and you want fresh new ideas you find out if he has any and if he doesn't then you don't hire him. Not because he is old.
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Shog9 wrote:
And with that, Paul closed his browser, sipped his herbal tea, fixed the flower in his hair, and smiled brightly at the multitude of cute, furry animals flocking around the grassy hillside where he sat coding Ruby on his Mac...
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Purely by chance, you are currently employing only Gender A. Hiring Gender B would allow the new employee to demand separate restrooms, which requires major changes to the plumbing, or for which you would need to move to a new office. Your area of business benefits from long-term / lifelong employment, but the place already looks like a geriatric ward. To give your company a future, you decide to hire young people. You run a bar catering to 25-35 year old male singles. You are hiring pilots. Your best clients are men-hating lesbians. Your company, parent company or your contry has regulations that give older people better benefits, or limits your ability to fire them. You can't force someone to hire or even keep an interviewee.
We are a big screwed up dysfunctional psychotic happy family - some more screwed up, others more happy, but everybody's psychotic joint venture definition of CP
My first real C# project | Linkify!|FoldWithUs! | sighistpeterchen wrote:
Purely by chance, you are currently employing only Gender A. Hiring Gender B would allow the new employee to demand separate restrooms, which requires major changes to the plumbing, or for which you would need to move to a new office.
I work in a hanger built in the early 50's. We have men and women's restrooms.
peterchen wrote:
Your area of business benefits from long-term / lifelong employment, but the place already looks like a geriatric ward. To give your company a future, you decide to hire young people.
hire co-op through the university, although age may be higher than 20's the vast majority of applicants will be in their 20's and 30's no need to ask.
peterchen wrote:
You run a bar catering to 25-35 year old male singles. Your best clients are men-hating lesbians.
hire on looks, not age, if you can't tell he/she is over 40, it's not worth asking, so don't ask it. I wasn't hired for wearing a tie to an interview, all the interviewers were in t-shirts and hawaiian shirts. If they don't fit in, they don't fit in, but if you have to ask, then no one else will know either.
peterchen wrote:
You are hiring pilots.
If they pass the physical, again, you don't care, don't ask. I am not sure if you are saying pilots can't be women, young or old here, but none are the case. Most commercial pilots are older because of the required flight hours before hire. It takes a long time to get those hours.
peterchen wrote:
Your company, parent company or your contry has regulations that give older people better benefits, or limits your ability to fire them.
never heard of such a situation. But again, if you have to ask, that's an HR issue. The primary interview should be on "doing the work." HR and security can still "not hire" an employee even if they pass the interview for a variety of reasons, just as the employee does not have to accept the job, the company doesn't have to accept the applicant. Age is on the application, but the application is not usually part of the interview process here unless it is a transfer within the company. HR has to know, but I do not.
_________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and t
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peterchen wrote:
Hiring Gender B would allow the new employee to demand separate restrooms, which requires major changes to the plumbing, or for which you would need to move to a new office.
I am flabbergasted you and Nish seem to live in countries that don't already demand separate facilities irrespective of employee makeup. Here in Ireland a building has to have facilities for both genders and for the disabled. Same back home in South Africa. Do these companies that only have male toilets only have male clients that visit? What happens when a female client visits?
peterchen wrote:
Your area of business benefits from long-term / lifelong employment, but the place already looks like a geriatric ward. To give your company a future, you decide to hire young people.
Weak argument.
peterchen wrote:
You run a bar catering to 25-35 year old male singles.
You'll find this sorts itself out without recourse to filtering CVs.
peterchen wrote:
You are hiring pilots.
Eh? Which gender is incapable of piloting a vehicle?
peterchen wrote:
Your best clients are men-hating lesbians.
:rolleyes: Come on peterchen.
peterchen wrote:
Your company, parent company or your contry has regulations that give older people better benefits, or limits your ability to fire them.
So hire young people and fire them before they get too old? :laugh:
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Shog9 wrote:
And with that, Paul closed his browser, sipped his herbal tea, fixed the flower in his hair, and smiled brightly at the multitude of cute, furry animals flocking around the grassy hillside where he sat coding Ruby on his Mac...
Paul Watson wrote:
I am flabbergasted you and Nish seem to live in countries that don't already demand separate facilities irrespective of employee makeup.
well, if not having facilities is a legal reason for not hiring women, then they will never have women, and never need facilities... so although I too am surprised with this argument, if it is an allowable decision, then I can see how there would forever be gender bias.
_________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)
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Purely by chance, you are currently employing only Gender A. Hiring Gender B would allow the new employee to demand separate restrooms, which requires major changes to the plumbing, or for which you would need to move to a new office. Your area of business benefits from long-term / lifelong employment, but the place already looks like a geriatric ward. To give your company a future, you decide to hire young people. You run a bar catering to 25-35 year old male singles. You are hiring pilots. Your best clients are men-hating lesbians. Your company, parent company or your contry has regulations that give older people better benefits, or limits your ability to fire them. You can't force someone to hire or even keep an interviewee.
We are a big screwed up dysfunctional psychotic happy family - some more screwed up, others more happy, but everybody's psychotic joint venture definition of CP
My first real C# project | Linkify!|FoldWithUs! | sighistHow funny! Some kinds of interview needs have one public chairs and pop corn! :->
Engaged in the learning of English grammar. ;)
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.(John 3:16) :badger: -
MrBic wrote:
It's just funny how it's almost illegal to ask it during an interview.
but why would you WANT to ask it, EXCEPT for using bias? If you don't care, don't ask. Every question asked should have a purpose, some may be to relax or introduce the employee, but I see no reason to ask those two questions except in cases of using it to bias against the interviewee. As for asking the question, my prior employer asked all the illegal questions. He always got away with it. In most cases, the interviewee isn't going to work there, and will have nothing to do with that employer ever again, so their best bet is to warn all their friends away and find someone else to be employed with. There were a few suits filed, one he was accused of biasing against a hispanic, so he sent a list of all the hispanic surnames to the court, even though most were married to hispanic, but not hispanic themselves. There are all kinds of ways to twist the results of the suit too.
_________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)
I wouldn't care about an interviewee's sex, unless I was hiring prostitutes, but age can be important. If you are looking to hire someone for a five year project, and they are two years away from retirement, I would want to know. Likewise, if I was starting up a firm and needed experience onboard to gain investment, it would be an important factor. Don't hate the player. Peterchen has also listed some good reasons why. None of the restrictions prevent bias. Now it is simply the case that if an interviewer cannot determine the answer to an illegal question on their own then they will just not consider the candidate at all. It is just not worth the risk of getting it wrong. These laws are all made in good faith by people with no idea of the real world. It is PC gone insane. For example, some big UK recruitment companies are 'highly recommending' CV authors not to specify the year they left school, obtained a degree, or dates for anything prior to their most recent job, because that would accidentally expose the hiring managers to information about canditate ages, and open employers up to future lawsuits for discrimination. Now tell me that is to prevent bias and not utter madness. I challege anyone to. How long until you cannot ask a candiate their work experience, because it could be used to determine their relative ages? Or, even worse, it could be used to discriminate against the less-skilled candidates! My god, that could be straight out of a New Labour manifesto! Am I joking? I thought they were joking when they told us not to put our ages on our CVs. Personally, my age is a big asset to me when seeking work because coupled with my work experience it shows my strong commitment to my career and my work ethic (sadly both rarities today), and it allows me to filter out the employers I want to avoid without wasting the time to walk out of an interview. It works both ways, and now both sides are losing out.
Ðavid Wulff What kind of music should programmers listen to?
Join the Code Project Last.fm group | dwulff
I'm so gangsta I eat cereal without the milk -
MrBic wrote:
-Person Age -Persons Religion -Persons Political Standing -Persons Sex
Good. India should strongly bring this into its realm as well. It would address the concern briefed here: http://viewsreviews.wordpress.com/2006/07/20/fate-of-freshers/[^]
Vasudevan Deepak Kumar Personal Homepage Tech Gossips
I've always told people: It's not what you know, it's who you know and what you can learn. In Canada, it's not as bad as in India (where the report was taken I asume). But let's look at construction. If a contractor needed to hire someone, he would hire a man 99% of the time because they're naturally stronger, can put up with more harasment on the job site, can work longer hours, and doesn't get as emotional. Sure it might be sexist, however, as far as a contractor is concerned, there's a job to be done and he wants it to get done as quickly and as proper as possible. I worked at a place where the employer would never hire anyone with an "accent". THe reason? The company delt with USA cops, and when they phoned in for support, he wanted them to talk to someone they could understand. I'm not saying they're the best roll-model employers, but when you look at it: A business exists to make money, not to employ people. If employing someone will lose them money they will not employ them.
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Nishant Sivakumar wrote:
If you office building does not have a separate ladies restroom, and law requires that there be a separate one if you have women employees, you may want to hire men only (and vice-versa).
Surely the law requires there are separate toilets for men and women (plus extra, accesible toilets for the disabled) irrespective of whether there are men and women working in an office? What kind of office building only has one sex in it? I can only think of army barracks. Or is this a legacy situation in India from when women weren't allowed to work? (Did that happen in India?) And this post doesn't cover unisex toilet facilities as some countries may allow.
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Shog9 wrote:
And with that, Paul closed his browser, sipped his herbal tea, fixed the flower in his hair, and smiled brightly at the multitude of cute, furry animals flocking around the grassy hillside where he sat coding Ruby on his Mac...
It depends on the building. Where I currently work (we're on the 2nd story, and parking is in the basement) there are no elevators or disabled access. The reason? THis building was built before those laws were made so it does not need to be upgraded to meet them as it was grandfathered in. We have single bathroom stalls, meaning only one person can go in them at one time, which means they're unisex, male and female can both use them. (yea no urinals, kinda annoying for the guys :(