CREAM: Criteria‐Related Employability Assessment Method : A Systematic Model for Employee Selection

Presents an improved replicable systematic method for the selection or promotion of employees through the developmental stages of a case study. The method provides systematic techniques for ensuring fairness and equality of opportunity for all candidates as related to particular job functions. The Criteria‐Related Employability Assessment Method (CREAM) has gone through continuous improvement over the past 20 years. The case study is of a new firefighter recruit selection process developed for the Phoenix Fire Department. Criteria were drawn from a group of the organization′s currently successful employees. Follow‐up research of those candidates selected for the first two firefighter recruit training classes showed that there was a significantly high correlation between the selected candidates and the criteria group of successful Phoenix firefighters. The playing field being levelled resulted in a significant increase in the number of minority group members and females that were selected to be on the hiring list. The method can be replicated and is applicable to other organizations in both the public and private sectors, such as fire departments, police departments, large corporations and government employee training programmes. Concludes that CREAM does remove or at least neutralize a great deal of the uses of personali ower, political manoeuvring, quotas and other special internal selection methods while meeting most if not all the external regulatory requirements, and assists in ensuring that the people selected know they were selected for who they are and not for just what they are.