adverse impact

Definition

When an employment practice disproportionately excludes a protected group, violating discrimination laws even if unintentional. The legal term for 'oops, your hiring process is accidentally racist.'

Example Usage

Our requirement for 'culture fit' is showing adverse impact against older candidates—time to rethink that beer pong test.

Origin

Defined by the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures (1978)

Fun Fact

The 'four-fifths rule' states that adverse impact exists if a protected group's selection rate is less than 80% of the highest group's rate.

Source: Employment law and compliance terminology

Related Terms

Beginner

PTO

Paid Time Off, which is technically time away from work that you're paid for, except you'll spend half of it answering Slack messages and the other half feeling guilty for not answering them faster.

👥 Human Resources

Beginner

diversity

The corporate buzzword for having a workplace that actually reflects what the real world looks like, rather than a 1950s country club. It's the intentional inclusion of people from different backgrounds, races, genders, and experiences, ideally moving beyond token representation to genuine equality. When done right, it's transformative; when done wrong, it's a checkbox on a compliance form.

👥 Human Resources

Intermediate

culture carrier

Employees who embody and propagate company values, serving as living examples of organizational culture for new hires. They're the people who unironically love the mission statement and won't shut up about core values.

👥 Human Resources

Advanced

garden leave

A notice period where departing employees remain on payroll but are barred from working or accessing company resources, preventing them from sharing secrets with competitors. Paid time off for being too dangerous to keep around.

👥 Human Resources

Beginner

return to office mandate

A corporate policy proving that middle managers need to physically see you working to justify their existence. Often disguised as promoting 'collaboration' while actually just protecting expensive real estate investments.

👥 Human Resources

Intermediate

Skill Gap

The distance between what employees can actually do and what the company wishes they could do, which is somehow always the employee's problem to solve. The gap is usually bridged by a mandatory LinkedIn Learning course and sheer willpower.

👥 Human Resources

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