Dr. Lewis Hollweg, head of the respected firm Batrus Hollweg International which does management behavior consulting and pre-hire testing in the hospitality industry, was recently interviewed in Nation’s Restaurant News by its editor for human resources, Dina Berta. In the brief article, Root Out Pro-Union Staff With Smart Hiring Process[1],Hollweg references pre-hire personality profiles as a tool to predict future employee behavior. Such tests have been in place for decades and used with increasing sophistication, mostly to keep the societal-maladjusted among us -- petty thieves, sexual deviants and harassers, egoists, tyrants and Oedipuses, representing the “cream of the crop” in organizational misfits -- from infecting an otherwise well-run company.
Citing a “wonderful” study conducted on a company in the United Kingdom Hollweg notes cheerily that after the dissected organization became unionized, there was nevertheless a happy ending of sorts, owing chiefly to the fact that the company “happened to have” on hand results of personality testing it had conducted sometime earlier. Following the union election the company used the test results to learn “who had voted for the union and who didn’t.” How? Though he doesn’t say exactly Hollweg references “common denominators” that apparently paint a virtual red arm band on union supporters; they are, he says, “more likely to be unengaged, pessimistic, negative, fault finding and attribute control to other people.” And, he adds, “they also tend to be more extroverted.”
What’s missing from the NRN article? For one, the tests are not foolproof. As an HR practitioner I remember being told that test results can vary based on a variety of factors, even the test taker’s mood; is this true? Employers should also be told of other potentially negative consequences to the use of personality profiles (e.g., if hiring rates of women and/or minorities drop once tests are administered, is that a problem?). Also, what might result if an employer subject to the National Labor Relations Act finds itself in possession of information concerning ‘who voted for the union and who didn’t?’” A future article might feature an employment lawyer qualified to answer these questions. In the meantime, I confess a curiosity to know how the UK company cited by Dr. Hollweg, despite having tested its employees, was nevertheless unionized? How did all those “negative” and “pessimistic” people get hired in the first place?
While pre-hire testing can and should be considered for some jobs, I’m old fashioned, I guess, believing instead that a competent interviewer, whether from operations or HR, can conduct even the briefest of interviews, scan an employment application, spot missing information and other problem areas, and predict with regularity the stuff of which most applicants are made. In this case, test results could confirm otherwise good hires, for me a better measure of their worth.
Of course, even reasonably written, balanced and fairly scored tests come to naught if the people who lead the enterprise are not tuned in to the pulse of their workforce. As well, accepting test results as valid without corroborating evidence such as interview results and reference checks is unwise.
Whether it’s a union vote gone bad or a sexual harassment case we wish we’d averted, where companies continue to struggle is learning too late of an employee’s propensity to mistreat coworkers or subordinates. Never fear, however; those drawers full of psychological profiles still have one final use -- serving as litigation exhibits to help prove what miserable people we tend to hire.
Be honest and be well.
Copyright 2009 by Charles A. Conine and Hospitality HR Solutions
Visit us on the Web at www.hospitalityhrsolutions.com
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