Ways organizations deal with polygraph exam results

Over the years we’ve discovered that what organizations struggle with most in regards to polygraph testing is not reaching the decision to go through with a polygraph exam, but rather dealing with the exam’s results.

A candidate is sent to a polygraph exam only after successfully passing the organization’s different screening stages, such as interviews and professional tests. In most cases, the potential managers and HR team have trouble dealing with negative results because they’ve come to look favorably upon the candidate. Since polygraph tests examine complicated personality characteristics that do not come to the surface in most preliminary interviews, there is often a contradiction between the candidate’s professional capabilities or characteristics and the level of his or her integrity.

It’s important to remember that the polygraph is a unique tool that isn’t affected by other parts of the candidate’s personality. It only assesses the fields of honesty and integrity.  Organizations would be better off losing a candidate who has promising professional capabilities, than to risk employing someone who may cause damage to the organization’s very foundation. Damage that is often only discovered after a significant passage of time, and damage that can prove to be irreversible.

A more complicated scenario is when a veteran team member fails a periodic polygraph exam. The organization’s managers, who understandably feel that they know the employee and trust them, find it difficult to deal with a negative polygraph exam result and tend to look for attenuating circumstances or alternative explanations for the results.

It’s essential to remember that an employee that breaks his employer’s trust was considered trustworthy in the first place. Research shows that most damage to organizations stems from veteran employees who hold some authoritative position. In these common scenarios, veteran employees took advantage of their position and status, and exploited breaches in the organization – breaches they were familiar with because of their high-ranking position.

A polygraph expert is someone from outside of the organization who isn’t familiar with the employees, and thus isn’t biased in their favor. The polygraph exam is a sensitive and accurate diagnostic tool, and its results have a high level of reliability (around 95%).

We make sure to explain to every client prior to the polygraph exams, that the biggest importance lies in trusting the test and accepting its results. The potential consequences of using the polygraph exam and refraining from implementing its results far outweigh the consequences of not using the exam at all. Employees who have caused damage to the organization, were tested with a polygraph, and did not have action taken against them will feel protected by the very organization they have betrayed. They will inevitably take advantage of this to increase the scope of their actions, and are bound to cause far more damage to the organization.