Case Study

Continuing Case: Honesty Testing at Carter Cleaning Company
Maria Roel
University of Texas Brownsville

Introduction In the case study honesty testing at the Carter Cleaning Company, there are issues of theft. They find themselves struggling with the processes of screening for honest hardworking employees. The owners, Jennifer and her father, are looking for a way to minimize the employee turnover and more so is theft prone.
Questions and Answers to the Questions
What would be the advantages and disadvantages to Jennifer’s company of routinely administering honesty tests to all its employees?
According to Dessler (2008), some advantages are that honesty tests are “designed to predict job applicants’ proneness to dishonesty and other forms counterproductivity. Most of the tests measure attitudes regarding things like tolerance of others who steal, acceptance of rationalizations for theft, and admission of theft-related activities (p. 236).” These types of test prove to have minimal legal risk to employers (p.237).
Specifically, what other screening techniques could the company use to screen out theft-prone and turnover-prone employees, and how exactly could these be used?
Dessler mentions the use of background checks such as verifying a potential candidate’s former employer is a way to clear a candidate by knowing about their work ethics. Another way would be through credit reports. These types of reports show a potential candidate’s “credit standing, indebtedness, reputation, character, and lifestyles (p. 230).”
How should her company terminate employees caught stealing, and what kind of procedure should be set up for handling reference calls about these employees when they go to other companies looking for jobs? Employees should be terminated immediately. In order to help other companies, there should be a procedure such as writing everything down or making notes in the employee’s folder for all future references. Future employees would be advised of such procedure during the interviewing process. Fine (2013) states “Once the right test has been chosen, and with the organization’s objectives still in mind, the next step is to strategically position the test within the recruitment process for maximal effectiveness (p. 42).”

Summary As seen in the case of the Carter Cleaning Company, employee turnover is a problem. In order to minimize such problems there needs to be an effective hiring procedure. Dessler speaks of antitheft screening procedure. They are asking direct question during face-to-face interviews, listen to applicant and do less talking (this will allow the applicant to speak freely and through this they may speak more truthfully), do a credit check, check all employment and personal references, use paper-and-pencil honesty tests and psychological tests, test for drugs, and establish a search-and-seizure policy and conduct searches (p. 237).

Reference
Dessler, G. (2008). Human Resource Management. Upper Saddle River, NJ. Pearson Prentice Hall.
Fine, S. (2013). Practical Guidelines for Implementing Preemployment Integrity Tests. Public Personnel Management, 42(2), 281-292. doi:10.1177/0091026013487049.
Lee, K., Ashton, M. C., & de Vries, R. E. (2005). Predicting Workplace Delinquency and Integrity with the HEXACO and Five-Factor Models of Personality Structure. Human Performance, 18(2), 179-197. doi:10.1207/s15327043hup1802_4.