Denver, U.S.A. — On July 19, 2012, the Department of Labor (DOL) announced it reached a settlement with Leprino Foods on a discrimination suit. The dispute involved the company’s practice of using ability tests to assess candidates’ skills in applied mathematics, locating information, and observation, for hiring laborers.

The DOL held that these tests had adverse impact on Asians, Hispanics, and African-Americans. The DOL claimed that these groups of applicants scored lower on the tests, on average, than did Caucasian applicants and Leprino, therefore, did not hire them. More importantly, the DOL cited a lack of evidence from the company to prove these ability tests related to job performance. In the settlement, Leprino agreed to pay back-wages of over $550,000 to those applicants it did not hire and will ultimately employ thirteen of the original applicants.

This illustrates a dilemma in hiring practices facing many organizations. And, it will only increase as the demographic and ethnic populations of the labor pool changes.

The dilemma is that renowned psychologists such as Frank Schmidt, John Hunter, and Philip Bobko have shown that ability tests, usually written tests that measure some form of knowledge, are exceptional predictors of job performance. Thus, as a tool for determining applicants’ suitability for jobs, they are among the best in predicting applicants’ future job performance.

However, the use of these tests usually results in adverse impact – meaning that employers that use these tests are less likely to hire non-Caucasians.  This adverse impact triggers the interest of various governmental review agencies such as the DOL and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).

Employers must think critically about the use of strong selection tests that also have a high probability of rejecting a larger proportion of applicants of color and ethnic diversity than Caucasian applicants. Among the implications of this pattern of rejection:  applicants may file discrimination suits and government agencies may review the selection program. Perhaps as importantly, though, the organization is cutting itself off from major segments of the labor pool that are becoming increasingly larger.

The paradox these tests pose by being a strong predictor of job performance but also creating an adverse impact has generated debate among organizational and human resource professionals.  Even though court cases have upheld the use of ability tests with a clear relationship to job activities, some professionals have deep reservations about their use because of their impact on society.

A study by Kevin Murphy, industrial/organizational psychologist and testifying expert at Lamorinda Consulting, LLC, reported this difference of opinion among professionals on the usefulness of cognitive ability tests for employee selection.  While most professionals agreed the ability tests were valid, they disagreed among themselves about the extent to which ability tests can predict work performance. A related issue involved whether other types of tests were as effective as ability tests.

Employers can take several actions to attain high quality and defensible hiring practices that conform to the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures (1978) and related court decisions

The Uniform Guidelines explicitly state that an organization can use ability tests even if they have adverse impact if the organization can prove that the tests are job related. This proof can consist of correlation coefficients offering direct evidence that test scores relate to job performance or a series of steps that generate indirect data that show such a relationship to important job tasks.

However, employers must consider the benefits of having a highly diverse workforce.

Diversity in its workforce can improve an organization’s access to labor pools, its viewpoints on how to market to diverse consumer segments, a positive impact on public perceptions of the organization, an enhancement of the organization’s brand as an open employer and marketer, and a buttress to reduce the probability of discrimination suits and negative media attention.

Employers can put in place selection portfolios that achieve both of the following objectives:  strong hiring practices and diversity goals. Generally ability tests are the least expensive and easiest type of selection instrument. However, other types of tests are clearly job related.  These include work sample tests, which give the applicant part of a job task to do, and structured interviews, in which an interviewer asks detailed job-related questions.

Such instruments can have several advantages. Applicants, even those not hired, generally perceive them as fair. This perception reduces the possibility of legal complaints. Such methods also provide direct information about the job readiness of the applicant pool.

Beyond merely making a yes or no hiring decision, employers should consider other options, such as specialized training of otherwise qualified applicants. Members of the applicant pool may share a deficiency in a particular ability, such as simple computer literacy. Employers could easily correct these deficiencies in skills by providing training.  Adding such training may open jobs to large segments of the labor pool and ultimately increase diversity in the organization.

Employers have used ability tests since the 1920′s and these have been quite effective and efficient.  However for most of that time, the legal environment of business and the diversity of the labor pool have been very different than they are now. These trends make it necessary for each organization to carefully consider what its selection program should be and to carefully think about the diversity, legal, and societal implications of its portfolio of hiring practices.

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Friends of Animals recently celebrated a victory for scimitar-horned oryx, addax, and dama gazelles who are routinely bred and killed on hunting ranches here in the United States. These animals, on the brink of extinction in their native homelands in northern Africa, have been the targets of paying trophy hunters seeking a thrill-kill.

On 5 Jan. 2012, a new rule in the U.S. Federal Register was published, reflecting two decades of work by Friends of Animals to protect these antelope. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) will now protect all members of these three species under the Endangered Species Act—including those bred on U.S. soil and sold for sport-hunting.

60 Minutes will recount the story of how these animals ended up on the verge of extinction, and how Friends of Animals, through its project in Senegal, is protecting these animals so they can recover their footing and freedom in their own habitat.

“We’re grateful that 60 Minutes is telling this landmark story,” says Friends of Animals’ president Priscilla Feral, who worked with 60 Minutes correspondent Lara Logan in the late spring of 2011—recounting Friends of Animals’ work on this project that began in 1999 with a trip to Senegal.

Friends of Animals, with the Environmental Law Clinic at the University of Denver’s Sturm College of Law, sued the federal government to list the these antelopes as “endangered” under U.S. law. In September 2005, the FWS did list the three species as “endangered,” noting that desertification, human encroachment, ranching, regional military activity, and hunting imperil these antelopes.

Yet on the same date, the FWS published an exception to the rule removing take and transport prohibitions from the very animals that the United States has the strongest power to protect—those kept by U.S. enterprises.  The blanket exemption authorized killing, commercial transport, and interstate or foreign commerce—hence, allowing continued exploitation of these animals on hunting ranches.

A court case brought by Friends of Animals and WildEarth Guardians in 2009 challenged the loophole and secured a court order finding that the exemption violated Section 10 of the Endangered Species Act. The judge call the blanket exemption “anathema” to the ESA, and in June 2009 remanded the rule to the FWS for the appropriate change.

Friends of Animals currently supports an increasing population of 175 oryxes (and dozens of dama gazelles) in northern Senegal within two, semi-desert reserves encompassing thousands of acres—and is committed to seeing these numbers grow.

“Even though this project is decades long, we’re just beginning,” says Feral. “We’re committed to ensuring these animals thrive in freedom once again.”

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The Association of periOperative Registered Nurses, (AORN), announced the results for its annual salary survey of perioperative nurses in the December issue of AORN Journal. Survey participants included staff nurses, managers, (i.e., nurse managers/supervisors/coordinators/team leaders/business managers) high-level managers (VPs/directors/assistant directors and hospital/facility administrators), educators, RN first assistants (RNFAs), and clinical nurse specialists.

Highlights of the results include:

• The pay in university/academic ASCs was more than in any other facility type, though the author noted there was a small sample size for this group
• Nurses generally receive more compensation in larger facilities
• The average staff nurse earns $67,800 ($1,400 more than in 2010)
• The average VP/director/assistant director of nursing earns $107,600 ($4,700 more than in 2010)

The survey results were reported by Donald Bacon, Ph.D., a professor of marketing at the University of Denver, CO, and a research associate at Rocky Mountain Research, Denver. According to Bacon, “Part of the difference in salary across titles is explained by the difference in the percentage of time spent on direct patient care versus the percentage of time spent on other tasks such as management or administration.”

For the eighth consecutive year, AORN conducted its survey online. In July, 5,053 unique responses from 46,113 potential respondents, including 31,622 AORN members were reduced to a usable sample of 2,670. All respondents were employed full-time in the United States.

Bacon used a multiple regression model to examine how a number of variables, including job title, education level, certification, experience, and geographic region, affect nurse compensation. The survey also addresses the perioperative nursing shortage and focuses on perceived changes in staffing-related aspects of the perioperative nursing workplace during the last three years.

The AORN Journal is peer reviewed and provides registered nurses in the operating room and related services with information based on scientific evidence and principle. Articles cover the nurses’ roles before, during, and after surgery and include patient teaching and preparation, use and care of surgical instruments and supplies, asepsis, sterilization, anesthesia, and related topics.

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