The decision definitely has a great effect on the promotion procedure of the company. This is mainly because the enterprise’s 1800 staff comprises individuals from varied backgrounds, though the majority are United States natives. The company’s hiring and promotion processes have always been transparent and the test is mandatory during both procedures. In the wake of the Ricci v Steffano case, it is expected that a number of individuals will file suits against the company once they fail to get promotions on account of poor performance in the tests (Wax, 2009).
Members of examining panel
A number of loop-hole sealing measures will be taken to ensure that the organization does not fall subject to discrimination complaints. One of the key changes that will be implemented is to reconstitute the panel designing the test questions. If possible, all different ethnicities in the country will have representatives in the panel. This would definitely ensure that any questions that may appear biased against particular races or ethnic are rectified well in time.
The members selected to this examining board will have to be individuals of impeccable professional and personal credentials and should be individuals who can swayed by the masses even when they feel that a particular question appears to give particular advantage to a given ethnic group. Both genders will also be well represented as well individuals from other non-ethnic minority groups such as Homosexuals and the disabled (Healey, 2009).
Relevance of the test
Tests will be administered to candidates based on the particular job that the individuals are applying for or are seeking promotions to. It would not make sense and would be actually seen discriminatory to give a test requiring extensive knowledge of finance department operations when the person is seeking promotion or recruitment into a human resource department. The examination should be designed to measure an individual’s potential in the performance of the given job. The test should be continually upgraded because every job’s demands change with time and therefore as an employer, the company will not be justified to claim that a test is valid because it has been used severally.
Examination setting
The candidates will also be required to take the tests preferably on the same day and in the same venue. This will ensure that all participants are exposed to similar circumstances and that favoritism is not reported in terms of the time that individuals get or the suitability of the venue. It is ideal that the invigilators as well be from different backgrounds especially professionally. This will see to it that no cases of coalition between invigilators with similar interests to favor a particular group of individuals are reported. Special consideration will be given to candidates with disabilities whenever additional time is needed. This is a provision that will be legally entrenched in the company’s constitution particularly in clauses under test administration.
Examination assessors
The persons involved in the assessing the test will be selected based on professional merit but effort will be made to ensure that as many of the various interest groups are represented. The scripts allocated to a particular assessor or assessment team will be picked out on a random basis. This will ensure that individual assessors/assessment teams handle as many different papers as there are ethnic, racial, ability and other special interest groups among the examinees. With discrimination suits becoming popular as the days go by, it is imperative that this measure be taken to avoid incidences of individuals going to court to purport that the people involved in test assessments were prejudiced against a particular group.
Examinee identification
The identification requirements when submitting the tests will totally eliminate the usage of information that could identify the racial or ethnic identity of the individual. Names in particular will be replaced with special registration numbers which will essentially be tagged to the individual in the company records. This will make it almost impossible for the examiners to identify which examination sheets belong to which individual and in great sense reduce any favoritism attempts that may arise.
Validation study
Before either the recruitment or promotion tests results are presented to the relevant authorities, the company will make sure that the test is validated by the national examination council or by an accredited team of experts. The validation study will give the company the chance to analyze the test results to find out whether there was an adverse impact against a protected group of examinees.
The validation study will go a long way in identifying loopholes that could lead to discrimination suits aside from helping the company confirm that the hiring and promotional processes end up in the hiring and promotion of individuals with the most desirable credentials for the particular job. The prediction study will also come in handy in helping predict the performance of the selected individuals (Zweig, 2009). This will in the long run have a positive impact on the company’s performance as well as giving even more credibility to the company’s recruitment and promotion procedures.
Reference List
Healey, J.F. (2009).Diversity and Society: Race, Ethnicity, and Gender. California: Pine Forge Press.
Wax, A.L. (2009). Race, wrongs, and remedies: group justice in the 21st century. Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield.
Zweig, J. (2009). What Hr professionals need to know about the Ricci V. Destefano / Supreme Court verdict: Immediately updating testing & interviewing policies that could cause workplace discrimination lawsuits. Massachusetts: Reedlogic.