Hiring For Your Dental Practice and the EEOC

In previous articles about hiring for your dental practice, I dove into a number of ways to interview that will help you select the right candidate. In this article, I am going to be a little more black-and-white and go over certain instances that could get you in front of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). For those who may not be aware, the EEOC is the agency that will perform and investigation if you accidentally, or purposely, make a hiring decision based on a characteristic of the person.

At this point, most dentists say to me, "Look, I went to dental school not law school. Also, I am good person and I don't discriminate when hiring – I should be fine." Unfortunately, the laws are written in such a way that even if you just appear to be biased, you can get in trouble. This kind of trouble can result in penalties, fines and legal fees for your practice, and prevent you from doing the great dentistry you are capable of performing.

What's protected?

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act says:

It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer:

1. 
   

   to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin; or

   
   


2. 
   

   to limit, segregate, or classify his employees or applicants for employment in any way which would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment opportunities or otherwise adversely affect his status as an employee, because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.

   
   

There are other laws that protect making business decisions based on marital status, family status, disabilities, age, genetic information, veteran status and status with regard to public assistance. On that note, you should also check your state laws since they may have more protected statuses, such as sexual orientation or gender identification.

That being said, I would be sure that you spend at least a small amount of time on the following sites to be sure you understand the regulations around hiring and terminating employees:

• EEOC This is the agency that investigates and enforces laws around discrimination, harassment and sexual harassment. It is a fairly user-friendly site that gives clear guidance on what is OK and what is not.


• DOL Among other things, this is the agency that enforces wage and hour complaints. In future articles, I will examine this topic by explaining how a practice can get in trouble with these – but it is worth taking a look at now.

My next article will cover legal vs. illegal questions in an interview since this is an area that a lot of employers – not just dentists – get in trouble.

Adam McWethy, MA-HRIR, SPHR, is the Director of Human Resources and Faculty at Spear Education.


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