It’s standard practice to request employment references as part of the recruitment process for new employees. It’s often the case that offers of employment are subject to the receipt of satisfactory references. At one time, you could rely on references to provide you with an in-depth account of an employee’s strengths and their flaws. However, in an increasingly litigious world, exactly how useful are references in the modern workplace?
As an employer, you have a duty when writing references to take reasonable care to ensure that the information you provide is true, accurate, fair and not misleading. Failure to take such care could leave you liable for negligent misstatement and you may be ordered to pay compensation if the former employee or the recipient of the reference suffers damage as a result of your negligence.
The Data Protection Act has also made it easier for individuals to see the references that have been written about them. They can simply make a subject access request to the employer who has received the reference.
With fear of being sued, lack of confidentiality, combined with a lack of time, it is perhaps unsurprising that most employers restrict the information provided to the very basics: the employee’s job title and dates of employment. In fact, this is now the norm in most organisations.
Even when an employee has been dismissed for poor performance, managers are usually very unwilling to commit themselves to putting anything in writing on a reference. This could be for compassionate reasons: they don’t want to hinder the individual’s future career prospects. Or it could be for less noble reasons: they’re joining a competitor and hope that they will be equally as disruptive there. Of course, in these scenarios, the managers concerned can hide behind their reference policies which only allows them to provide the barest of employment details.
At the other end of the spectrum, caution is perhaps warranted when references are received containing several paragraphs of carefully worded prose. These could be so called “agreed references” written as part of a Settlement Agreement, the wording of which has been drawn up by both parties during the negotiation process.
The increasing reality is that you shouldn’t hope that references will give you an insight into how well the individual performed in his or her previous roles. You should simply use them to confirm that the dates and job titles on their CV are accurate, which can often be very useful if a job applicant is attempting to mislead you about his or her previous employment.
Instead of using references to gain insight into the applicant’s previous employment, you should rely on your recruitment process to assess a candidate’s likely performance in the role they have applied for. Ask them to complete work related exercises to see if they really can do what the role requires. In short, test their abilities as part of the recruitment process, don’t just assume they will be able to do the job. There is often a reluctance to test someone’s ability particularly when recruiting for professional or senior roles. However, it could be a costly mistake if the wrong recruitment decision is made, so ask those technical questions!
Competency based interviews, psychometric testing and conducting more than one interview are also useful ways to ensure you are recruiting the right person.
You’re also advised to introduce probationary periods if you haven’t already done so and actively monitor performance during this period to ensure your new recruit is up to the task.
Is it worth taking up employment references?
Sadly references today probably aren’t worth the paper they’re written on when it comes to getting a measure of a new recruit’s previous employment. They are however useful in confirming that individuals were employed when and where they said they were, and as part of your overall pre-employment screening processes. Since we can no longer rely on references to give an indication of an individual’s ability, recruitment practises have to get more sophisticated in testing candidates’ knowledge and abilities. Failure to adapt in this way could lead to costly mistakes being made.
If you have any questions, please contact our team
