Recruiters legal right; advertizing drug/alcohol free environment

cbs

1) Is it legal for a recruiter to call or e-mail to our employees during working hours? Also, if a recruiter gives his phone number to an employee and asks to be called back, can the employees' manager call back and tell the recruiter "if he calls our office again during working hours for the purpose of recruiting our employees, he will be sued".
2) When we advertize for employment, what is the best way to represent that we have a drug and alcohol policy to try to establish a drug and alcohol free environment.

Don D

First, yes it's 'legal' for a recruiter to recruit away your workers on his time, theirs and yours, nights, days or Sundays. It may be an ethical issue, but, there's nothing illegal about the practice, which, by the way is frequent and pervasive. You can admonish your employee to not return recruiter calls while on duty and tell him that's personal use of your company phones. Tell your boss not to waste his time considering a lawsuit. With our sales people and engineers, most of whom came to us by way of recruiters, the standard practice is for the same recruiter to begin recruiting our new employee approximately 6-10 months after he placed him with us. It goes with the territory. You can shout at the recruiter and you can send him emails or write letters to his supervisor. Chances are, though, it won't phase him. Secondly, the best way for your advertisements to state that your company has a drug testing policy is to state that your company has a drug testing policy. That simple. Our ads state, "Drug Free Workplace. Pre-employment Drug Screen Required". One employer in our area frequently puts this at the bottom of his ad: "If you're doing drugs today, don't waste my time or yours tomorrow by applying". Creative.

Margaret Morford

Don D is right that recruiters can come after your people. If an employee has an employment contract, you could maybe sue them for tortious interferance with a contract, but it's expensive and not always successful.

I have two suggestions. First, if you use recruiters, invite this recruiting firm in to talk to you. Make it very clear to them that if they want to do business with you, they will not recuit away anybody they have placed with you nor will they recruit your current people. While they can do it legally, really good recruiters don't do it. I would also make sure they know that if you ever catch them doing it, not only will they never get another piece of business from you, but that you will not recommend them to the HR people in other companies and you will let all the HR people in the community know not to use them. They're a whole lot more interested in what you can do for them than they are in making one placement.

Second, most telephone systems permit certain numbers to be blocked. Why don't you program their telephone number in so that it is blocked? Hope that helps.

Margaret Morford
theHRedge
615-371-8200
[email]mmorford@mleesmith.com[/email]
[url]http://www.thehredge.net[/url]