Honestly, Can We Trust You? Employers seek an integrity test

Barred from using polygraphs, employers seek an integrity test

Each year U.S. businesses lose as much as $40 billion to employees who steal. To protect their profit margins, many hard-hit companies have resorted to routine polygraph screening of workers and job applicants. But the scientific validity of these devices has never been proved, and the tests have sometimes caused harm to people who are falsely implicated. Such is the case of Shama Holleman, a college student who took a job in 1987 as a part-time cashier for Alexander's department-store chain in New York City. After a month as a model employee, she was fired because a polygraph test indicated that...

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