Practical Guidelines for Implementing Preemployment Integrity Tests

• Date: 01 June 2013
• DOI: 10.1177/0091026013487049
• Published date: 01 June 2013
• Author: Saul Fine
• Subject Matter: Articles

487049PPM42210.1177/0091026013487049Public Personnel ManagementFine
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Public Personnel Management
42(2) 281 –292
Practical Guidelines for
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DOI: 10.1177/0091026013487049
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Integrity Tests
Saul Fine1
Abstract
Integrity tests have been well researched in recent decades and have consistently
been found to be effective predictors of counterproductive behaviors in a variety
of occupational settings. In practice, however, the unique nature of integrity tests
and their constructs have made their integration into organizations’ recruitment
processes somewhat challenging. In light of this situation, the present article outlines a
number of practical guidelines that organizations can follow to help ensure successful
integrity testing procedures. These guidelines are based on best practice standards
for preemployment testing and describe the fundamental need for carefully planned
and well-communicated implementation stages, which may include an initial audit
of the organization’s counterproductive behaviors, setting realistic and measurable
objectives for the test’s use, choosing the appropriate test, correctly positioning the
test within the recruitment process, training the organization’s staff and piloting the
test, making accurate hiring decisions and providing appropriate candidate feedback,
and finally monitoring the test’s performance and employees’ behaviors over time.
Keywords
integrity testing, guidelines
Introduction
In public- and private-sector organizations around the world, job applicants are
screened and assessed by a number of different selection methods before they
are hired. These methods nearly always include some form of resume review and
one or more personal interviews, and may also be supplemented with the use of
1Midot Ltd., Bnei Brak, Israel
Corresponding Author:
Saul Fine, Midot Ltd., 11 Ben Gurion St., Vita Towers, Bnei Brak, 51260, Israel.
Email: saul@midot.com

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Public Personnel Management 42(2)
psychological assessment tools. While these psychological assessments can vary in
terms of the competencies they measure, ranging from mental abilities and skills to
personality traits, when organizations are particularly interested in the honesty of their
new employees, they will often choose to administer integrity tests as well (Miner &
Capps, 1996).
Integrity tests are designed to screen-out high-risk candidates as a means to miti-
gate subsequent incidences of counterproductive work behaviors (CWBs) and occupa-
tional offenses, such as theft, fraud, bribery, violence, and drug use (Murphy, 1993).
To do so, integrity tests may include items with direct questions to job applicants
regarding their attitudes toward CWBs in general and occupational offenses in particu-
lar (Sackett, Burris, & Callahan, 1989). Accordingly, individuals who tend to identify
with counterproductive behaviors, believe that such behaviors are pervasive or justifi-
able, are lenient toward their perpetrators, and/or have been involved in such behav-
iors themselves are predicted to have greater propensities toward engaging in such
behaviors themselves in the future (Wanek, 1999). A prototypical item from an integ-
rity test, for example, might be the statement “most employees will steal from their
employers at least once,” whereby, a candidate’s agreement or disagreement to this
statement is essentially indicative of his or her perceived pervasiveness of employee
thefts.
Indeed, a vast amount of research and meta-analytic evidence over the past few
decades has shown integrity tests to be significant predictors of CWB in a variety of
settings (Ones, Viswesvaran, & Schmidt, 1993) and able to successfully reduce CWBs
when utilized in the selection process (Jones, 1991). However, for any tool to be oper-
ationally effective, it needs to be properly implemented into the organization’s overall
recruitment and selection process. Proper implementation may include issues such as
clarifying the test’s objectives, the influence the test has on the hiring decision,
training the test’s administrators, monitoring the test’s performance, and so on.
Consequently, the unsuccessful implementation of one or more of these areas can
render even well-developed and validated assessments more or less ineffective.
With respect to integrity testing, implementations can be especially challenging for
at least two main reasons. First, there is often confusion as to how to integrate integrity
tests, which predict negative behaviors, into the overall selection and assessment pro-
cess, which is normally designed to predict positive performance. Second, adding to
this confusion, is an uncertainty regarding the proper interaction between human
resource specialists, who are typically in charge of the recruitment and assessment pro-
cess (i.e., selecting-in promising job candidates), and security personnel, who are more
often in charge of assessing personnel risk (i.e., screening-out high-risk candidates).
In light of these challenges, this article describes a number of practical guidelines
to help personnel specialists ensure a successful implementation of integrity tests in
their organizations. These guidelines are based on best practice standards for preem-
ployment testing in general (American Educational Research Association, American
Psychological Association, & National Council of Measurement in Education, 1999),
and related writings in particular (Association of Test Publishers, 2010; Werner & Joy,
1991), and are endorsed by the experience of developing and providing integrity tests
for public- and private-sector organizations around the world.

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Fine
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The Initial Audit
An important stage before implementing an integrity test is the assessment of the orga-
nization’s current situation in terms of the nature and frequency of occupational
offenses and other counterproductive behaviors that occur. This stage is highly advis-
able, as it can give the organization’s decision makers an accurate (and sometimes first
time) look at the actual behaviors of their employees, which is an essential prerequisite
to setting realistic objectives and making meaningful changes later on. An organiza-
tion’s current situation might be audited by summarizing issues such as the number of
disciplinary actions, the number and types of incidents, rates of voluntary and invol-
untary turnover, and performance appraisal records. Such issues may then be cross-
referenced against specific branches, departments, jobs, tenure, or against industry
benchmarks in general, whereby the most behaviorally problematic segments of the
organization may be identified. Finally, these job segments should be ranked in order
of their perceived risk to the organization, in terms of their incidence as well as in
terms of their value to the organization to help prioritize intervention efforts. In many
cases, the results of this type of exercise can prove to be surprising. For example, the
highest incidence of sabotage, property theft, or corporate espionage in a given orga-
nization may not come from its agents or officers, but from its subcontracted mainte-
nance staff, who often work late unsupervised hours and who may have been hired via
an outside firm that did not go through the same thorough hiring process and security
checks as the organization’s permanent employees.
To carry out the audit, it is generally sufficient to summarize data that are readily
available from the organization’s personnel or corporate security database (e.g., over
the previous 12 months), although personal and group interviews and employee...