Workplace bans political speech?

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🏛️ Workplace bans political speech?

🤨 HR team canned after AI mishap

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WORKPLACE

Workplace Bans Political Speech?!

Election season in America… Where everyone gets along and coworkers work in harmony.

Sike!

During polarizing times like election season, some companies have tried to implement policies regarding political speech in the office. One law firm, Duane Morris LLP, weighed in on the situation in an interview with HR Dive.

“From a practical standpoint, it may really not be feasible for employers to have a rule or a policy prohibiting political speech in the workplace, even assuming there were no National Labor Relations Board that they had to worry about.” -Christopher Durham, partner at Duane Morris.

Durham said policies aiming to ban political speech at work would be nearly impossible to enforce because of the multiple lines of communication (email, slack, teams, etc.) employees regularly use. If companies do want to enforce it, they would need the equivalent of a mini NSA to monitor everything, which also creates privacy and ethical concerns for employees.

Still, that hasn’t stopped companies from pursuing such policies.

Companies that have implemented policies banning political speech have cited a recent Indeed and Harris survey and said the policies are aimed at increasing employee retention. The August survey revealed that nearly 3 in 10 (28%) workers would consider quitting over political differences with managers or coworkers.

Maybe don’t ask, don’t tell is the right approach!

AI

HR Team Fired After AI Mishap

Another day, another AI gone wrong story.

This time, it cost a whole HR team their jobs. Last week, a manger noticed a potential flaw in his company’s applicant tracking system (ATS) when they hadn’t been able to hire anyone for three months.

He decided to take matters into his own hands and submit a CV using a fake name.

You can probably guess where this is going…

The manager’s application was automatically rejected, despite having all the experience the role called for. He investigated further and found that the ATS had automatically rejected all applicants to that point. The error stemmed from the ATS filtering for outdated AngularJS skills.

To put that in perspective, that would be like auto-rejecting an iOS developer who had experience in iOS 18 (the most recent version), but not iOS 1.0.

After reporting the incident to upper management, the majority of the HR department was fired immediately for relying too much on the system rather than manually reviewing any applications.

Some reports suggest that nearly 40% of companies plan to implement AI in their hiring process, so this story should serve as a great reminder that human oversight remains essential!

JOB SEARCH

Best Job Seeker Resources October 2024

  • JobParty.AI

    • Avoid getting auto-rejected by applicant tracking systems by using Job Party’s Resume Optimizer tool to ensure you look like a perfect match for the job you’re applying for. Job Party also offers a whole suite of tools built specifically for job seekers looking to maximize their chances of landing a high-paying job in the minimum amount of time.

  • UpWork

    • UpWork has compiled a list of the 20 best sites to look for a job with the pros and cons for all of them. Everyone knows about the big ones like Indeed and LinkedIn, but there may be some hidden gems posted on sites you didn’t even know existed!

  • Employment and Training Administration

    • The Department of Labor (DOL) has sub-organization called the Employment and Training Administration (ETA). Government and their acronyms… SMH. The ETA has a roadmap tool to help job seekers identify and find jobs in the government and private sector. They also have tools for unemployment benefits, as well as applications for Job Corps, the nation’s largest free career training and education program.

  • StillHiring.Today

    • Still Hiring has an extensive list of companies hiring, where job seekers can filter by everything from job type, to location, to industry, and more. A great resources for job seekers that just want to see what’s out there!

  • Glassdoor

    • Due dilligence is just as important as finding and applying for the job. The last thing you want is to accept a job and find out the company sucks after getting hired. Glassdoor allows job seekers to see what other candidates and current employees have to say about the company.

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