Employment Testing Can Backfire

Conservative columnist George Will this week (Monday) wrote a column in which he traced the widespread requirement for college degrees for jobs just about anyone could do to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and subsequent interpretations and enabling legislation.

Under Will's telescope, the problem was that courts and juries began finding that employment tests, whether intentionally or not, often resulted in skewed results whereby certain classes of people would do better than others. Thus the tests discriminated, willy-nilly or no.

The solution for employers, according to Will, was simply to require that employees have college degrees for jobs beyond the routine and mundane. Certainly, the jump in those attending college in recent years might be an indicator of this, although technologically advanced work sites and workloads could be another factor.

At any rate, this brings up the interesting story of firefighters in Akron, Ohio, who had to take a test for advancement. Somehow, the results skewed against those firefighters who were either white or over 40. The 23 affected firefighters sued, and the jury agreed, awarding them a $2-million judgment.

If there's a lesson here, it's "don't give tests," though that seems like a ridiculous approach to screening employees for skill sets. Problem is, courts and juries base judgments on results, not on intent of the tests, and even if the results are random, they can still lead to findings of discrimination.

If you're an employer, you may want to delve into both the Employee Communication and Compliance Handbook and the Employee Handbook and Personnel Policies Manual from Personnel Concepts.