Health and recruitment

Statistics and reports mentioned in Chapter 1 (see page 10) seem to suggest that some employers and managers are getting better at recruiting people with a health issue or disabilities. The Equality Act 2010 (EA10) introduced a ban on pre-employment questions to job applicants about their health, including whether they have a disability, and about their previous sickness absence record, before they are offered a role.

Once a job offer has been made, a reference request asking about a candidate’s sickness record is, in theory, permissible, but employers are likely to be discouraged from engaging in this practice, given the increased litigation risk. There are exceptions to the ban on pre-employment questions. In particular, an employer is allowed to:

• ask an applicant whether s/he has a disability before the interview for the purpose of organising any reasonable adjustments for the interview process;

• ask whether a candidate can carry out a function intrinsic to the role once reasonable adjustments have been made; and

• request information about disability for the purposes of diversity monitoring, although this information should not be available to the person carrying out the candidate selection.

The ban on asking pre-employment questions about health is enforced by the Equality and Human Rights Commission.