Surprisingly, the most difficult part for an organization that chooses to conduct a polygraph exam on its employees isn’t sending them to the test, but rather implementing the test’s results and dealing with them in the appropriate manner.
Periodic polygraph tests are random tests carried out every so often on a portion of an organization’s employees, mostly to create a deterrent effect. A number of years ago, we conducted periodic polygraph exams for an online-based service provider that was employing individuals from numerous countries in Europe. Each employee was responsible for a different location, and offered the company’s services in their respective languages.
The polygraph exam results of one employee who was responsible for a certain European country showed that he was untruthful, and that he had leaked classified company information to a competitor.
As is procedure, this information was transferred to the company’s CEO. It quickly became apparent, however, that the CEO had trouble dealing with it. According to him, this was an outstanding employee who had impressive sales numbers, was well-liked by his co-workers, was friendly, and had great interpersonal skills. The CEO assumed it was possible that a romantic relationship between the employee in question and a co-worker, who had left the company by then, had gotten in the way and caused the test results. We offered our opinion to the CEO, saying that this explanation was unsatisfactory. We recommended that the issue should be examined thoroughly.
We returned to the company’s office three months later, again to conduct periodic exams. This time were asked to examine all desk members from that same country – a desk which the previously mentioned employee was a part of. According to the company managers, in the recent quarter there had been a 50% drop in sales in that specific country, and there was reason to believe it was due to data leakage.
This time, two additional employees were found to be untruthful. One of them told us during his exam that he and the other two employees who were found to be untruthful (he obviously didn’t know their exam results, yet named them) shared a rented apartment. According to him, he was contacted through Facebook by a person who worked in the same industry, and was invited to transfer classified company information in return for payment.
An investigation into the matter revealed that these three employees had sold customer data to the Facebook contact, causing huge financial damage to the company.
All three were fired and reported to the police. However, the damage to the company was done. Had action been taken three months earlier when our periodic polygraph exams revealed the first instance of data leakage, it’s possible that this would have prevented the costly loss the company experienced.
