Fair Employment Strategies in Human Resource Management

Twenty-eight nationally recognized authorities on various aspects of fair employment laws and practices provide sound, innovative, state-of-the art procedures to select job applicants and predict their success. Written by personnel psychologists, attorneys, and human resource specialists, the book helps executives reduce adverse impacts on minorities, women, and older and disabled workers while providing them with the means to develop, evaluate, and if necessary participate in the litigation of employee selection procedures. It will also provide understanding of the ways that personnel psychologists construct and validate tests and how adverse impact is evaluated and interpreted by the Supreme Court. This is an accessible, hands-on resource for executives in various capacities, students in fields related to employee selection, and attorneys concerned with fair employment litigation.

Dr. Barrett points out that human resource people need to learn more about the selection procedures that fairly and accurately identify the most talented members of the applicant pool. Baffled by the way personnel psychologists do their testing, they need ways to evaluate for themselves what the psychologists are telling them. Those who are already familiar with the tools of testing, such as psychometrics, statistics, and test construction, need understanding for how these tests are related to fair employment. Lawyers involved in fair employment litigation need information on how these tools and tactics can be used in the preparation of cases. Dr. Barrett's book provides this information in chapters devoted to the development of fair employment law, ethical standards relating to fair employment testing, standards for job relatedness of selection procedures and the variety of selection procedures available. The book also covers gender issues, the role of the EEOC and other government agencies, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and of special value to HR professionals and executives in other capacities, a checklist to help evaluate the fairness and validity of tests.

RICHARD S. BARRETT is Principal of Barrett Associates, a consulting firm specializing in fair employment issues. He has held professorships at New York University and Stevens Institute of Technology. Dr. Barrett has also testified in cases argued before the Supreme Court and worked for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, where he participated in writing the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures. He has authored, coauthored, and contributed to nine previous books.