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Chapter 3:
HIRING ETHICAL PEOPLE
CHAPTER 3 CHAPTER AND ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS
In studying this chapter, students should consider the questions below.
“CQ1” refers to “Chapter Question 1.” This question appears at the end of the textbook
chapter.
“AQ1” refers to an “Additional Question 1.” This is an “additional” question related to
the chapter. It is not listed at the end of the textbook chapter as a “Chapter Question”.
These items are numbered within the two categories based on the order in which the
answer appears in the chapter.
CQ1: What are the six-steps of an ethics job screen process?
AQ1: What are the benefits of notifying job applicants about a company’s ethics focus?
CQ2: Describe the importance of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and how to determine if an
organization’s job screening process results in disparate impacts.
AQ2: What is affirmative action? Are affirmative action plans ethical?
AQ3: What legal obligations do job candidates have with the organizations interviewing them?
CQ3: What are six sources of behavioral information about a job candidate’s ethics? What are
the strengths and weaknesses of each information source?
CQ4: Which of the “Big Five” personality factors are the most relevant for understanding a job
candidate’s ethics?
AQ4: What is organizational citizenship behavior? What does it tell us about job applicants?
AQ5: What two measures suggest that a job candidate might be prone to unethical behavior?
CQ5: What types of questions would you ask job candidates during an interview to understand
their ethics? How would you know if the candidates are responding truthfully?
AQ6: What type of drug test would you use for job applicants?
CQ6: Under what conditions can a job candidate be given a polygraph test?
CHAPTER 3 LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After completing this chapter, students should be able to:
Screen job candidates for their ethics
Understand what job candidate factors are illegal to consider when hiring
Obtain accurate behavior information from resumes, reference checks, background checks,
and integrity tests
Use personality tests scales that measure ethics
Ask interview questions that address ethical issues
Understand when drug and polygraph tests can be administered
CHAPTER 3 LECTURE OVERVIEW
Sometimes, after dismissing an employee for an ethical breach, a manager might wonder: How
did this person get through the hiring process? There are millions of good-hearted and
well-intentioned people, but this person was not one of them. The best safeguard against
unethical activities at work is hiring people of high integrity.
This chapter provides a six-step process for determining the ethics of job candidates. First,
notify job candidates about the ethics job screen and then diligently gather information in a way
that does not violate the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Potential sources of ethics information about
job candidates include resumes, reference checks, background checks, personality tests,
interview questions, and drug tests.
CHAPTER 3 LECTURE OUTLINE
Teaching Objective: To teach students how to determine the ethics of job candidates.
Suggested Time: Two to three hours of class time is recommended to present this chapter.
Attempts to cover the material in less time are discouraged.
I. Chapter Question 1: What are the six-steps of an ethics job screen process?
Ethics screen notice
Legal ground rules
Behavior information
Personality traits and related characteristics
Interview Questions
Post-Interview tests
II. Additional Question 1: What are the benefits of notifying job applicants about a
company’s ethics focus?
Attraction-Selection-Attrition Cycle (ASA)
Outreach to ethical applicants
Best Practices Ben & Jerry’s
III. Chapter Question 2: Describe the importance of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and
how to determine if an organization’s job screening process results in disparate
impacts.
Background
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act
Disparate impacts
Other legal issues
Age discrimination
Pregnancy discrimination
Mental and physical disabilities
Alcoholism
Illegal immigrants
IV. Additional Question 2: What is Affirmative Action? Are Affirmative Action Plans
ethical?
Affirmative action
Ethical issues
V. Additional Question 3: What legal obligations do job candidates have with the
organizations employing them?
VI. Chapter Question 3: What are six sources of behavioral information about a job
candidate’s ethics? What are the strengths and weaknesses of each information
source?
Resumes
Reference checks
Background checks
Integrity tests
[Other sources explained in later answers]
VII. Chapter Question 4: Which of the “Big Five” personality factors are the most
relevant for understanding a job candidate’s ethics?
Big Five Personality Model
Conscientiousness
VIII.
IX. Additional Question 4: What is Organizational Citizenship Behavior? What does it
tell us about job candidates?
X. Additional Question 5: What two measures suggest that a job applicant might be
prone to unethical behavior?
Social Dominance Orientation
Bullying
XI. Chapter Question 5: What types of questions would you ask job candidates during
an interview to understand their ethics? How would you know if the candidates are
responding truthfully?
Background
Previous ethical dilemmas
Visually detecting for lies
Realistic job preview
XII. Additional Question 6: What type of drug test would you use on job applicants?
Background
Drug testing options
XIII. Chapter Question 6: Under what conditions can a job candidate be given a
polygraph test?
Background
History
Employee Polygraph Protection Act of 1988
Recent Events
CHAPTER 3 SUPPORTING MATERIALS
Textbook Inserts
Ethical Dilemma Analysis
What would you do?
Let’s Build a Building
In the Real World: Enron
Exhibits
Exhibit 3.1: Six-Step Ethics Job Screen Process
Exhibit 3.2: Job Selection Rule Checklist
Exhibit 3.3: College Student Job Application Lies
Exhibit 3.4: Personality Traits, Related Characteristics, and Ethical Behavior
Exhibit 3.5: Conscientiousness Scale
Exhibit 3.6: Organizational Citizenship Behavior Scale
Exhibit 3.7: Helping Behavior Scale
Exhibit 3.8: Social Dominance Orientation Scale
Exhibit 3.9: Standard Job Screening Polygraph Questions
Exhibit 3.10: Behavioral Information Sources: Strengths and Concerns
Exhibit 3.11: But What If I’m a Small Business?
Thematic Boxes
Tips and Techniques
Best Practice in Use
CHAPTER QUESTION 1: WHAT ARE THE SIX-STEPS OF AN ETHICS JOB
SCREEN?
DISCUSSION ACTIVITY
Determine immediately how well students have grasped the material by asking them at the
very beginning to write down how they would determine which of two highly qualified job
candidates to hire. Then have them discuss their answers in small groups to come up with an
in-depth project management plan – what will they do first, then second, then third?
Choose one group to share their plan with the entire class. And then use their answer to frame
what to teach them about the 6-steps. Start at the beginning, praise the group for what they did
right, and then supplement what they said with the text material.
The most important factor for developing and reinforcing a high integrity work culture is hiring
ethical job applicants. Employing someone whose ethics does not match that of a high-integrity
work culture can contaminate an organization.
Hiring someone is inviting the person into your home, if your organization is small, or
your community, if the organization is large.
Some people are kind, helpful, trustworthy, and friendly, while others are mean-spirited,
irritating, dishonest, and annoying.
One bad hire can make the daily life of many employees miserable and contaminate an
organization’s work culture.
Personal integrity and high ethical standards are indispensible attributes to possess.
1) ETHICS SCREEN NOTICE
Inform potential job applicants about the organization’s ethics job screen.
2) LEGAL GROUND RULES
Gather and use information in a way that does not discriminate against job candidates based on
their race, color, religion, gender, national origin, age, or disability.
3) BEHAVIOR INFORMATION
Review behavioral information from resumes, reference checks, background checks, and
integrity tests.
4) PERSONALITY TRAITS AND RELATED CHARACTERISTICS
Obtain measures for personality traits and related characteristics such as conscientiousness,
Organizational Citizenship Behavior, Social Dominance Orientation, and bullying.
5) INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
Interview job finalists about their responses to ethical dilemmas experienced at previous
workplaces and how they would respond to ethical dilemmas experienced by current employees.
In addition, clarify inconsistencies and ambiguities that arose during the previous two steps.
6) POST-INTERVIEW TESTS
Where appropriate, conduct drug and polygraph tests.
BUT WHAT IF I’M A SMALL BUSINESS?
Some students do not plan on working for a large business and may wonder if any of this
is relevant for a small business. Address this early on.
Including ethics as part of the job screening process is even more important for
small businesses.
By ensuring that new employees are ethical, small business owners can
confidently delegate tasks without having to worry about monitoring for theft or
other unethical behaviors.
Similar to large companies, a small business owner can obtain ethical behavior
data from well-designed job applications and a reference check, ideally from the
job applicant’s previous supervisor.
Background checks can be easily conducted via Internet searches.
Then ask the job applicant how he or she has responded, or would respond, to
common ethical issues, such as a friend demanding free products or services.
Inform job applicants that unethical behaviors will not be tolerated and result in
termination
ADDITIONAL QUESTION 1: WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF NOTIFYING JOB
APPLICANTS ABOUT A COMPANY’S ETHICS FOCUS?
STEP 1: Ethics Screen Notice
ATTRACTION-SELECTION-ATTRITION CYCLE (ASA)
Industrial psychologist Benjamin Schneider’s Attraction-Selection-Attrition cycle (ASA)
highlights how individuals are attracted to organizations that reflect their values and goals,
organizations select applicants with personal attributes that “fit” the work culture, and then
individuals depart if the fit is inappropriate.
OUTREACH TO ETHICAL APPLICANTS
Include a sentence in the job announcement noting that background and reference checks will be
conducted and ethics is part of annual performance appraisals.
Notifying potential job candidates about the organization’s ethics screen attracts
ethical applicants and discourages morally egregious people from applying.
People who behave ethically want to be members of ethical organizations. Notifying
job applicants that ethics matters provides ethical people with additional job-related
information they find appealing. Ethical people want to report to ethical managers,
work with ethical colleagues, manage ethical subordinates, and represent ethical
organizations in the broader community.
People who behave unethically, on the other hand, are not likely to apply for jobs
with organizations that advertise the strength of their ethics job screening process.
The ethics notice informs unethical people that previous unethical behaviors will be
revealed, which puts them at a significant disadvantage to equally skilled applicants
who behaved ethically at previous places of employment.
Some job applicants may be concerned that the ethics screen is an invasion of
privacy. Clarify that the ethics screen focuses on job-related issues and not activities
unrelated to work. Inform job candidates that the information gathered will be used to
assess the applicant’s workplace ethics and remain confidential between the applicant
and employer.
BEST PRACTICE BEN & JERRY’S
Ben & Jerry’s takes an extra step by broadcasting the organization’s progressive
social mission throughout its website in hopes of attracting like-minded people.
The company’s three-part corporate mission focuses employees on achieving profit
and growth (economic mission) by making high quality ice cream (product mission)
while improving the quality of life for all stakeholders (social mission).
Review BEST PRACTICE BEN & JERRY’S
DISCUSSION ACTIVITY
Take a quick poll by asking students if they find Ben & Jerry’s social mission appealing. Why
or Why not?
For those who find it appealing, if they had two job offers, one from Ben & Jerry’s and one
from a more traditional company, would they take a job at Ben & Jerry’s if salaries were 10%
lower than that of the traditional company? Why?
CHAPTER QUESTION 2: DESCRIBE THE IMPORTANCE OF TITLE VII OF THE
CIVIL RIGHTS ACT AND HOW TO DETERMINE IF AN ORGANIZATION’S JOB
SCREENING PROCESS RESULTS IN DISPARAT IMPACTS.
STEP 2: Legal Ground Rules
BACKGROUND
For nearly two centuries, employers could use any selection criteria they desired. Explicit
discrimination was widespread. Some employers displayed signs that read: “X” Need Not
Apply” with “X” being anyone of a different gender (usually women), religion (usually
Jews, atheists, and Catholics), race (usually African Americans and Asians), or ethnicity
(usually the latest group of immigrants).
During the 1950s, classified advertisements in newspapers were often segregated
according to “Male” and “Female” jobs.
oSecretarial and airline stewardess job openings noted preference would be given
to young and attractive women applicants, who were then questioned about their
child-rearing plans and spousal jobs.
Many federal and state laws now govern the types of information an employer can gather
on job candidates and the reasons an employer can invoke for selecting one job candidate
over another.
oGather and use information in a way that does not discriminate among job
candidates based on their race, color, religion, gender, national origin, age, or
disability.
oEmployers signal good ethics to job candidates by respecting the law when
recruiting and selecting employees.
TITLE VII OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT
In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson pressured Congress to pass the far-reaching Civil
Rights Act. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits businesses from
discriminating among job applicants based on the person’s race, color, religion, gender, or
national origin. These groups of previously discriminated people are referred to as
“protected classes.”
Title VII has been expanded to prohibit employers from discriminating based on age and
physical or mental disabilities. Some states and municipalities have passed legislation
that includes “sexual orientation” as a protected class, but not at the federal level.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) was created in 1965 to
oversee provisions of the Civil Rights Act.
oThe EEOC’s scope extended with the passage of the Age Discrimination in
Employment Act of 1967 and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.
oThe federal agency investigates discrimination complaints, seeks negotiated
solutions to violations, and litigates when conciliation does not occur.
There are four major exemptions to Title VII:
If an organization employs less than 15 people – small businesses are exempted
from many regulations so as not to overwhelm them with regulatory compliance
burdens
If an organization serves a religious purpose
If it is a bona fide occupational qualification where the discrimination relates to
the “essence” or “central mission” of the employer’s business (i.e., preference for
a Chinese person as a waiter in a Chinese restaurant)
If a direct relationship exists between a protected class and an inability to perform
the job task
Managers can refuse to hire people they do not like, but the dislike cannot be based on
the job candidate being a member of a protected class.
DISPARATE IMPACTS
Unlawful discrimination can occur on the front end or the back end of the hiring process.
Front end job discrimination occurs when members of protected classes are excluded
from the job candidate pool. This can be intentional or unintentional.
oWord-of-mouth recruiting, such as recommendations from other employees or
colleagues, is often a very effective means of attracting high quality employees.
But if the organization has a homogenous workforce consisting of white males,
this could result in a job application pool of only white males.
Back end job discrimination can be intentional or unintentional.
oIntentional job discrimination would occur if a male manager decides not to hire a
woman finalist because the other men in the office are sexist and would not
follow orders from a woman.
oA job selection rule that does not explicitly discriminate against a protected class,
but results in a “disparate impact,” may violate the Civil Rights Act.
oDisparate impacts occur when members of a protected class rarely make it
through all the job screening filters, suggesting that one of the decision rules
could be unintentionally discriminatory.
oMost disparate impact challenges are associated with written tests, height and
weight requirements, educational requirements, and subjective procedures that are
not associated with the specific tasks required to perform the job.
An organization’s gender, racial, and ethnic employee profile should reflect the gender,
racial, and ethnic profile of people living in the geographical region qualified to perform
the job task.
The Equal Employment Opportunities Commission (EEOC) recommends applying a
“four-fifths” rule to determine whether an apparently nondiscriminatory selection
process may result in disparate impacts.
oThe method consists of determining the acceptance rate for two groups of job
applicants and, if nondiscriminatory, the acceptance rates would be within 80
percent of each other.
oThis is calculated by dividing the percentage of “protected class” acceptances by
the percentage of majority group (white or male) acceptances. A disparate impact
calculator is available online at
www.hr-software.net/EmploymentStatistics/DisparateImpact.htm.
DISCUSSION ACTIVITY
Have students obtain employee gender or race statistics from a recent job search or from a
corporate website. If possible, search for relevant community data on gender and race. Then
use the Disparate Impact calculator at
www.hr-software.net/EmploymentStatistics/DisparateImpact.htm to determine if it
meets the “four-fifths” rule.
OTHER LEGAL ISSUES
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act has been supplemented with legislation prohibiting
discrimination based on age, pregnancy, and disability.
AGE DISCRIMINATION
The Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, amended in 1978 and 1986,
prohibits organizations from not hiring someone because he or she is over the age of
forty.
PREGNANCY DISCRIMINATION
The Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 clarified that unlawful sex discrimination
included not hiring a woman because of a visible pregnancy or the likelihood of
becoming pregnant.
MENTAL AND PHYSICAL DISABILITIES
The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 extended civil rights protections to qualified
job applicants with disabilities (defined as “a physical or mental impairment that
substantially limits a major life activity”).
For Mental Disabilities
oAccording to the EEOC, do not ask job applicants whether they have been treated for
any mental health conditions or certain diseases.
oInstead, ask applicants if they are able to perform all job functions and meet the job’s
attendance requirements.
oWith proper medication, people diagnosed with manic-depression or other mental
health disabilities can be excellent employees.
oMental health and other medical tests to job candidates can be administered after a
bona fide job offer has been made.
oMental health tests are recommended, and at times mandated by law, for jobs
involving high levels of stress, personal risk, and responsibility, such as nuclear
power plant operators, armed security guards, or air traffic controllers.
oIf a mental health test reveals a disability, the company must provide
accommodations unless doing so is burdensome.
oMental health tests such as the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)
are not a valid way to determine the ethics of job candidates. A person with a
manic-depression disorder who takes the appropriate medication is likely to behave as
ethical as anyone else in the general population.
ALCOHOLISM
Questions about being an alcoholic are illegal under the Americans with Disabilities Act
because alcoholism is categorized as a disability.
You can ask about work attendance. Alcoholics and problem drinkers are absent from
work four to eight times more often than other employees.
If job related, employers can ask applicants about drunken driving arrests.
ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS
An increasing number of immigrants from a variety of nations illegally enter the United
States because of immigration quota restrictions.
Hiring an illegal immigrant violates federal law.
Employers must carefully approach this topic because asking only Latino job applicants
if they are illegal immigrants discriminates based on national origin.
Employment lawyers recommend that all job applicants be asked if they are legally
authorized to work in the United States on a full-time basis.
DISCUSSION ACTIVITY
Experts estimate that 25 percent of the 47 million Latinos living in the United States are
undocumented, having crossed the border illegally. With 12 million illegal Latino immigrants
living in the United States, it is not very difficult to find one. Ask students (and
debate/discuss):
1. Should police and immigration officials give a more concerted effort in locating and
deporting illegal immigrants? Why?
2. Should emergency room doctors and nurses turn in illegal immigrants using medical
services? Why?
3. Should police stop people they suspect to be illegal immigrants and check their ID cards?
Why?
4. Currently, children born in the U.S. whose parents are illegal immigrants automatically
become citizens. Should this law be changed where these children are denied citizenship?
JOB SELECTION RULE CHECKLIST
Review EXHIBIT 3.2, which provides a checklist for determining the viability of a job
selection rule. A “Yes” response to any of the three rules could result in a discrimination
lawsuit. Require integrity and personality test vendors to affirm in writing that, based on
use by other clients, the instrument has been proven not to violate any of the rules.
