An employer in the construction industry should treat its
employee relationships as it would a building project: the contract
must be designed to specification, the foundations laid, walls
built and each relationship then maintained to avoid damage and the
need for restoration.
In order to lay the right foundations for each employment
relationship, the challenge for infrastructure firms is to
consistently follow a fair and transparent recruitment process. By
way of example (and in what is a not an uncommon issue for a
stereotypically male dominated industry), employers must take care
to avoid any allegations of sex discrimination. In such
circumstances, liability can be created anywhere in the process:
from the language and imagery of job advertisements through to an
inadvertently leading question at interview. Although, at this
stage, individuals are not yet employees, they can still bring
discrimination claims if they believe they were treated less
favourably
