Providing Employment References
Providing employment references is not a legal obligation but is a common practice to support the employee's future employment, assist in the new employer's due diligence, maintain professional standards and integrity, comply with industry or regulatory standards and avoid negative inferences. However, there are many pitfalls which primarily relate to legal risk, fairness, consistency and data protection. Key pitfalls to avoid as follows:
- Providing a misleading or inaccurate reference
- Including personal opinions or subjective comments
- inconsistency between references
- Breach of confidentiality or data protection law
- Overstepping the company's / employer's role
- Failing to flag safeguarding or regulatory concerns
- Giving Verbal references
A number of templates can be downloaded and applied to protect employers from these potential pitfalls, manage legal risk, ensure fairness and maintain consistent employment operations.
Firstly, Guidance Notes - Giving References which explain the issues employers need to consider in providing references foe both employees and ex-employees. This template explains the context for and suggested content of references, and data protection, liability and potential discrimination issues.
These Guidance Notes are supported by an Employer's Policy on Giving References. The policy reflects best practice, providing clarity of legal obligation, designated authority for issuing references, scope and content options, prohibits verbal references, the handling of additional enquiries, consent and data protection compliance and recognition of different types of references requests (e.g. mortgages).
A further template is available to be used as the base for a reply for an employee reference. This Reply to Request For Employer Reference provides a standardised format and is complies with the Guidance Notes and Policy above.
These documents are included in Employment and listed below:
- Guidance Notes – Giving References
- Policy on Giving References
- Reply To Request For Employer Reference
Providing Employment References is part of Employment. Just £38.50 + VAT provides unlimited downloads from Employment for 1 year.