Trucking

To Test or Not to Test was published in the October, 2000, issue of Atlantic Progress:

To test, or not to test: It's becoming common for truck drivers to be thoroughly tested, but not everyone agrees that it's a good thing.

Transportation companies are striving to hire drivers who will bring them more business, better business, and provide PR and advertising as part of their job. How a driver handles trouble on a loading dock, for instance, reflects not only the driver but the company itself. While some reputable companies, with low employee turnover, abhor the use of paper and pencil tests for applicants, for others it has becoming a popular screening method, with various tests available for identifying different characteristics of potential employees. 

"Most accidents and employee turnovers happen within the first three to six months, and it costs $17,000 to turn over a truck driver," says Mark Tinney, president of Scheig & Associates, a Gig Harbour, Wash. company that creates three-part tests for use by employers. "The Scheig tests are not invasive. We're not looking into the crevices of the applicant's psyche. These are behaviorally based tests, and they're recognized as 90% accurate." 

The company designs tests specifically for hiring in banking, trucking, child care, and insurance. They're meant to identify applicants with the greatest probability of being outstanding in their job performance. Between 300 and 500 job behaviors, reflecting such things as safety, attitude and mindfulness of representing the company, are identified by Scheig researchers who watch people performing their jobs, and make a list of every job behaviour for the respective employee. "The top performers in any given category tend to produce two or three times more than others in the field," says Tinney. "And they tend to underrate what they do! Those with outstanding performance consistently have specific behaviours that their barely acceptable counterparts do not." 

Researchers create an assessment based on the top 10 performers in the field. "We're not interested in the personality types, but in the job behaviors," says Tinney. Wayne MacFarlane, manager, JVI Commercial Driving School in Charlottetown, PEI, gives the Scheig test to driver applicants. "We're looking for someone who fits the long-hauler lifestyle," he says. Seldom able to deliver their load and go home at night, long-haul drivers often spend long, lonely hours waiting for a load to transport so that they don't drive home empty. Finances of the trucking business won't permit empty loads. "Long haulers have to be able to look after themselves physically and emotionally," says MacFarlane. ...

"Additional trucking samples coming soon."

Law Enforcement

Emergency Medical Training: Who Needs It? Who's Got It? was a feature article in the November, 2000 issue of Law Enforcement Technology:

Whether a medical emergency results from an automobile accident, a shooting, hysteria, or a heart attack, the ability of the first responder on the scene, usually a law enforcement officer, to help the victim(s) depends, to some degree, on the geographical area in which the incident occurs. "Location" appears to influence the degree of medical training an officer receives.

A random, cross-country survey indicates that in some regions Emergency Medical Training (EMT) for law enforcement officers is being reduced. To some extent, this is a practical, and economic move. It's not uncommon for fire fighters, or medical personnel to be on the scene seconds after police. With their extensive training, training law enforcement officers to do the same job is redundant, and may not be the best use of training budgets.

In other areas, however, medical training for law enforcement officers is thorough, and extensive. When seconds count, it makes sense to have law enforcement officers trained to deal with medical emergencies. What other agencies, and the public sometimes assume, is that law enforcement officers have little or no medical training, and in this light, police units would do well to publicize the extent of first aid and medical training their officers have.

Perry Dobbs, 48, is a working street medic and instructor of CPR, responder classes, and a Texas Department of Health examiner, in Houston, Texas. Formerly employed at Mobile Oil, Dobbs attended basic EMT. "My first call was for a full cardiac arrest," he says. "I was only able to perform CPR, and I realized right there and then that my training was inadequate." Dobbs went on to obtain intermediate training, then took additional schooling to become a fully-qualified paramedic. 

"Our law enforcement agencies want to help," he says. "Police officers don't like to stand there helplessly any more than I did when I was at that first cardiac arrest, yet there's not much structured training for law enforcement officers. It's not a prerequisite to be an EMT." ...

"Additional Law Enforcement samples coming soon."