There’s no question that the best way to deal with less-than-trustworthy employees is not to hire them in the first place. But how can employers discern a potential employee’s moral fiber at what often amounts to a first glance?
According to employers and human resources experts, there are tip-offs that can identify unsavory job candidates before they become unsavory employees.
One recently developed method comes from Greenwich, Conn.-based firm Veris Benchmarks. The tool purports to assist in determining whether a prospective hire might compromise a company’s reputation by engaging in fraud, deceit or some other type of errant behavior. The company has created a pre-employment assessment that identifies those who are more likely to commit financial crime. The assessment asks questions that the company says reveal the underlying traits that lead to fraud at the low end, and compliance at the upper end, going beyond what can be learned from background checks and legal records.
“These issues have burdened industry and business for centuries,” CEO and founder David Shulman said. “Impropriety, fraud, Ponzi schemes, Wells Fargo’s mismanagement, FIFA, VW, Toshiba — what if these could have been avoided? What if companies could detect potential malice and the likelihood of theft before the key players were ever hired?”
The Veris Trust Index purports to measure traits that are stable and change slowly over time.
“Test items are low in transparency; it is not easy to identify the best answer just by reading the question,” Shulman said. “The item development is psychologically deep enough that the test becomes too complex to bluff through.”
The questions are not admission based, he added — “How much do you steal?” — so applicants do not answer them defensively or with the aim to give the company the answers they think it wants.
Shulman says one study of the test had 9,000 applicants take the test twice, trying to improve their scores the second time. But of those applicants, 84 percent had lower scores the second time around.
Still, such testing is relatively new, so the use of such tools is not widespread. Most businesspeople rely on long-accepted, more traditional methods to gauge job seekers’ trustworthiness.
“Employers often want to assess a job applicant’s ‘moral fiber’ as part of the hiring process,” said attorney James T. Tucker of Armstrong Teasdale. “In some cases, doing so may not only be permissible, but may be a required job qualification. For example, ministers, priests, rabbis, imams and other leaders of religious orders or churches typically have to meet very strict moral requirements.”
Today, Tucker said, it is “much harder than it was in the past” to assess such factors.
“Outside of certain professions and workers entering into written contracts with morality clauses, prospective employers face a number of restrictions on assessing the moral fiber of job applicants because of applicable laws and regulations,” he said. “For example, Nevada law prohibits an employer from failing to hire a prospective employee or discharge an employee because they engage ‘in the lawful use in this state of any product outside the premises of the employer during the employee’s nonworking hours, if that use does not adversely affect the employee’s ability to perform his or her job or the safety of other employees.’ ”
Learning and Discerning
It begins with communication, which itself can encompass a lot.
“I always engage job applicants to have them speak as much as possible about personal tastes, pursuits, feelings, ethics and the like, and I can get a fair reading from this,” said George T. Bochanis of George T. Bochanis Law Offices in Las Vegas. “Yet, if an applicant is purposely being deceptive, there is little a job interview can reveal. This is why it’s important to go to other outside sources when researching someone who is applying for work within your business.”
“In these situations, I think some of the most important communication is nonverbal,” said Farhan Naqvi, managing partner of Naqvi Injury Law in Las Vegas. “It’s not always what they say, because they may say what you want to hear. It’s also their body language and the way they say things. Those are often more important than what they say.”
“In today’s market, we typically take a look at a candidate’s social media pages,” said John Anzalone, the principal of Las Vegas’ Sierra Vista High School. “Sometimes the things people say or do and are willing to put out to the public can be a true testament as to their personal moral fiber.”
Anzalone said “so much of hiring is gut instinct. I have interviewed people who frankly knock it out of the park in the interview, but really failed as employees. On the other hand, some really tighten up and become very nervous in interviews, but given the chance, impress us once in the position.”
“It is fair to say that most job hires are made as the result of a gut instinct — that is, a feeling that the person being hired is a good match with what the employer is seeking,” Tucker said. “But to minimize potential liability, those gut feelings need to be based on objective facts and evidence: the applicant’s educational background, their work experience, whether they meet the licensure requirements for the position, etc.”
Hayim Mizrachi, CCIM, suggested there are plenty of quality tools employers can utilize to assess job applicants once they know what they are looking for. Mizrachi’s commercial real estate brokerage, MDL Group, has its own process.
“We start with a scorecard for the position versus a job description,” said Mizrachi, the president and principal of the firm. “Another thing we do is a personality assessment on all new hires. Ours is handwriting-based.”
It’s important to remember, Mizrachi said, that it is not a test.
“You cannot pass or fail,” he said. “It is an assessment used specifically for the role we are hiring for. When we turn someone down ... it is not necessarily because they cannot do the job or don’t fit our culture. Nine out of 10 times, it is because they would not thrive in the specific position. That doesn’t serve us and ... it doesn’t serve them.”
Get Clarity
A few simple rules can usually steer employers away from trouble.
“As a sole proprietor, I do not hire employees; however, I do hire and fire clients and collaboration partners,” said Tami Belt, the principal of Blue Cube Marketing Solutions in Las Vegas. Her decisions are based somewhat on past performance: “Not just skill, but reputation. In addition, I rely strongly on my intuition. I sit down one-on-one to get a feel for the person, their passion and personality.”
Belt said “probably the most important thing” she looks for is “alignment of business philosophy and practices. One of the best ways I used to meet and evaluate potential clients and collaborators was by playing in charity golf tournaments. As Plato said, ‘You can learn more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.’ ”
“Start with your own (people) and get clarity about what it is you are looking for,” Mizrachi said. “Then research what methods or assessments are most appropriate. Come up with a process to reduce the possibility of falling in love with the candidate and looking the other way when flags are raised.”
Bochanis recommended that employers “be thorough, take your time, don’t be pressured, and don’t be afraid to ask a lot of questions. Schedule multiple interviews if you are interested in a candidate, to be sure any initial positive reactions you had with an applicant are valid.”
“Look to see whether their moral fiber or character is consistent with your own,” Naqvi said. “If the boss’s character or moral fiber is weaker than the candidate’s, it’s never going to work out — and vice versa.”