4 ms·
Setting aside the issue of cults, recruiting from church networks is fairly common. It's not surprising and often not nefarious. After all, a church is just ano
by InefficientRed 4y ago
Setting aside the issue of cults, recruiting from church networks is fairly common. It's not surprising and often not nefarious. After all, a church is just another social setting. People also recruit from other non-professional networks -- adult sports leagues, hobbies, alumni networks, family friends, and so on. Churches are just another social group.
I am, however, surprised more companies don't have explicit HR conflict of interest clauses regarding religious entities. Not whole religions, but specific congregations/parishes/etc. Allowing these social networks as unchecked recruiting channels without some sort of control seems like asking for discrimination suits, even when the subject is a traditional religious organization rather than a cult.
I think about religion the same way I think about family. There's nothing wrong with referring your cousin or fellow congregant for a position, but a judicious company should probably flag the conflict of interest in the actual hiring process and perhaps also in management relationships. Otherwise you can end up with centers of influence in the company revolving around an external religious social network, which is a huge risk for the company.
(Alumni networks have the same issue in terms of institutional political dysfunction, but with the important difference that a company cannot be sued for preferring Stanford grads in promotions.)
- rossdavidh 4y agoI think the biggest obstacle is probably that flagging it requires asking for information on it. There's a lot of icky history about quotas to prevent there being "too many" Jews in a particular organization, for example. If you ask what a prospective hire's religion/congregation/parish/etc. is, you may say it's to prevent a conflict of interest, but it looks bad, and probably invites as much legal trouble as not monitoring it, if not more.
- whatshisface 4y agoIt is one thing if someone brings in a guy they know from their soccer team to interview, another if 90% of the people in a department turn out to be playing on it.
- InefficientRed 4y agoYeah, bot would raise my alarm bells. But a very important difference from the co.'s perspective is that discriminating against non-soccer-players isn't illegal...
- whatshisface 4y agoIt's not that much of a difference, since the only way to get to 90% Manchester United is by discriminating against Liverpool.
- InefficientRed 4y agoNo, it's a huge difference. Manchester United fan is not a protected class in the US, but religion is. Hiring or demoting against someone who's not part of your church is Very Illegal in most situations but firing or demoting someone because you disagree with their football preferences is... perhaps psychotic, but totally legal.