Deutsch: Logo DHL Exel Supply Chain (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
“A critical part of the process was educating DHL recruits about prisoners, dispelling the myths and stereotypes that surround them”
“All DHL employees working on the contract were required to attend prisoner-awareness training, delivered by professionals from the prison service.”
“Interestingly, no colleagues have refused to work with prisoners on the contract. Understandably, in the early days, a small number of colleagues were nervous about working directly with ex-offenders. This was managed through coaching and attendance on prisoner-awareness training.”
“One concern raised in response to Clarke’s efforts to get companies to employ more ex-offenders is that, with unemployment levels still high, they could be taking jobs away from non-offenders struggling to gain employment.
However, Hopkinson stresses that offenders are not given priority over regular applicants.”
In other words DHL recruits the best person for the job but will assess the risks of any unspent convictions. Well done DHL! Good safe recruitment practice opening the door for real untapped potential for your business. #RecruitWithConviction
The UK Government has amended the 1974 Act and Recruit With Conviction is gathering evidence to provide a Scottish solution to enable people to start work and stop crime.
The facts:
Employment for ex-offenders reduces reoffending
A third of benefit claimants have criminal convictions
Ex-offenders have untapped potential for employers who recruit with conviction
Recruiting ex-offenders is endorsed by business leaders like Sir Richard Branson
There was never a time in history when criminal record history was more readily available
The Radical idea:
All convictions become spent when an individual is discharged from the Criminal Justice system. In other words, with the exception of jobs which put vulnerable people at risk or other exempted jobs like accountants, then any individual who is discharged by the criminal justice system is free to work without having to disclose their past convictions.
Ban the box idea:
If you were being introduced to an individual and told only that they had a dangerous dogs conviction, you would be surprised to see Princess Anne as the ex-offender. It is almost impossible for recruiters to avoid stereotyping ex-offenders! Ban the Box would stop employers asking about criminal convictions, until after they had assessed the candidate’s suitability for employment. The employer would still be able to deselect if the conviction was relevant, however they would be able to assess the candidate’s suitability for work without prejudice.
The Bureaucrats idea:
This would force employers to sign up to a code of practice for recruiting ex-offenders if they seek criminal record disclosure. This would require some sort of quota system whereby they would need to employ a certain percentage of ex-offenders in their workforce.
The Free Market idea:
On the basis that there is a significant untapped potential among ex-offenders, employers would be trusted to make good business decisions using the existing legislation. This would require a significant ongoing campaign and lobbying to businesses to help them overcome negative stereotyping. This would be expensive but business could pay for it.
Boots has become the latest company to sign up to an employer-led programme designed to try to cut the rate of reoffending among prison leavers.
It said last week that its High Street retail outlets would be part of the drive to recruit ex-offenders, but it also intends to involve all the British-based parts of the business as well as key suppliers.
The Employers’ Forum for Reducing Re-Offending already includes companies such as shoe repairer Timpson, distribution giant DHL and Virgin.
‘Right thing to do’: Boots has signed up to a scheme aiming to reduce the rate of reoffending among prison leavers
Having a job and home has been shown to improve dramatically the likelihood that ex-offenders will manage to stay out of trouble.
The Right Step Programme has been doing some outstanding work with employers to promote. Here are the details of their conference and a practical tool kit for any employer.
The event was held at the Radisson Blu Hotel, Stansted Airport , Essex. and 140 private, public and third sector oragnisations registered to attend. At the conference a Toolkit, developed by and for employers, was launched to join the Code of Practice which was published last year. Also launched were the first twelve of a series of case studies which have been recorded over the course of the project as examples of good practice.
There are a number of news sources over the pond reporting Pepsico‘s failure to recruit people with criminal records. This has resulted in the company being required to pay out $3.13 million to the applicants they discriminated against.
Pepsico applied a blanket ban in recruiting people with Criminal Records, rather than doing a professional risk assessment of the convictions.
This was evidenced to be race discrimination because it affected the employment rights of some ethnic groups more than others.
This would be even more significant if it was using gender data because men are about 10 times more likely than women to have convictions. 1
Figures also suggest that about 1 in 3, 40 year old men have a criminal conviction.
This blog does not claim to offer legal advice and quite clearly, the legislation applied was American. However, failure to risk assess criminal convictions properly is clearly gender discrimination and it risks being race discrimination to a lesser extent.
Any criticism of Pepsico also needs to be put into perspective because of an error in the design of their HR processes can be seen replicated in many companies.
The real criticism of Pepsico should come from its shareholders because the company has failed to make use of the untapped potential of a group of people, who given the chance and the proper initial support, can repay the company with hard work and loyalty.
Also to be fair to Pepsico these charges applied to their bottling operations for they have changed their recruitment policies in the US to be more inclusive.
Why do the Police Recruit People with Criminal Records? …
Quite simply because there is a talented pool of people who have criminal records and who also apply for work with the police.
Ex-offenders are discriminated against because of negative stereotyping, and it is not too difficult to deduct that there is real untapped potential among people with criminal records. The police see this day in and day out.
It is good recruitment practice for all employers to select the best candidate for the job and to risk assess the relevance of any convictions that the candidate has.
I doubt anybody can argue that the police are well placed to conduct such risk assessments and err very much on the side of caution (forgive the pun) when they decide to Recruit With Conviction. Recruiting in this way demonstrates just how inclusive the police have become in recent years, especially in light of all of the recent publicity. It also provides good value for the public purse!
There has never been a better time to recruit with conviction
There are a number of articles in the press today about the Ministry of Justice statistical bulletin which states that a third of benefit claimants have a criminal conviction in the last 10 years.
I don’t think that this statistic will surprise anyone working in the justice system but I do remember being chastised for taking a guess at this statistic a few years ago. At the time I suggested this very headline!
While it does create some very negative stereotyping of people on benefits, these statistics are a set of tools for policy-makers to address the difficulties that ex-offenders face in gaining honest employment.
Honest employment is the single most important factor in determining whether or not people re-offend. So while I am uncomfortable about the abuse of this statistic in stigmatising benefit claimants, I do welcome it.
The elephant is now well and truly in the room and there is now no excuse for not dealing with it.
Specific and specialist employability support must be available to deal with the barriers that a criminal record presents. But this support needs to be available for both employers and prospective employees. This approach was pioneered by Apex Scotland in 1998 in a project called Apex Scotland Employer Recruitment Training when over 1000 recruitment professionals in all sectors were trained to deal with criminal record disclosure.
There will also be calls for a re-assessment of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 which is long overdue. I’d suggest that part of the problem is the very title of the legislation because many employers falsely interpret “rehabilitation periods” as a minimum amount of time it takes before they can safely employ an individual rather than the point at which discrimination against the individual become illegal. Lets be honest and call it the Ex-Offender Equality Act 2012.
Beyond the problem with the title of the legislation, the periods of time before a conviction becomes spent are lengthy and often demoralising for job seekers who have otherwise turned their lives around.
Here’s some other stats from the report:
1 in 6 prison leavers were in p45 employment 2 years after being liberated.
1 in 3 people convicted of drugs offences were in p45 employment 1 month before their conviction.
4 in 10 people convicted of fraud or forgery were in p45 employment 1 month before their conviction.
While many people will be baulking at these statistics and the freedom they give to create negative headlines, I’m happy that we now have sound evidence to challenge policy makers and employers to do the right things for ex-offenders, and to support this untapped potential to realise their true potential and contribute to society in ways that they frequently really want to.
Employers can also benefit from new hard working and loyal additions to their workforce as well as contributing to wider social benefits if they overcome negative stereotypes in recruitment.
Great headline from “The Recruiter” they must be following a certain blog.
It’s also a great article and demonstrates Recruiting with Conviction to reach Untapped Potential. It really does work.
Quoting Denis Phillips from the Timpson Foundation.
…….. “All we are doing as a company is tapping into a recruitment source – we really struggle to get people.
There is the CSR [corporate and social responsibility] which we all have but at the end of the day we want the best person for the job and often we come across good people.”……….
‘Right thing to do’: Boots has signed up to a scheme aiming to reduce the rate of reoffending among prison leavers
