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Employee Background Checks: The Answer When Implicit Trust Isn’t Present
“I trust this guy explicitly” (of course meaning “implicitly”). I have heard this so many times in my career. It was often when considering someone for employment and a flag came back on pre-employment screening. The district manager who said it knew this person so well that he knew better than the background check company who administered the background check. The discussion would then move to degrees of trust.
The district manager might say “I trust him with my life” and I would counter, “Let’s not go that far; how about, do you trust him with the keys to your car?” The discussion might continue as to whether or not he trusted him to babysit his daughter or to take care of his checkbook. Inevitably, the district manager would realize that his trust wasn’t that implicit and that possibly employee background checks were done for a reason. At least he wouldn’t bet his job and reputation on it.
As a retail manager or business owner we realize we cannot afford to take chance with our business. We really want to have confidence with that person who is the face of our company, dealing with our customers; or is the custodian of our company’s funds, sitting at the cash register. How can we get that confidence if we really don’t know the person we are hiring except what they are telling us? The answer is through pre-employment screening by a reputable background check company. Pre-employment screening is not a miracle answer. It is practical due diligence however. We have heard over and over and my experience supports that the best predictor of future success is past performance. Isn’t that why we have people submit resumes in the first place? Don’t we want to know how well they performed their jobs in the past and what those jobs were? The same is true for employee background checks. We want to know how ethical they were in the past. We they subject to criminal temptations? Did they already steal from one of their previous employers? How much confidence would you have then?
In these times, with the “ban the box” movement going on, an employer must be careful of using criminal history data, but that does not mean we should forego employee background checks. Pre-employment screening is still a viable tool but it is just more important we use a reputable background check company and comply with our state’s laws as to when and how we can introduce the pre-employment screening into the process. Your background check company can help you answer that question.
I often hear the argument, “everyone deserves a second chance.” I totally agree but that does not mean you have to give that second chance to them –leave that to your competitor. If your pre-employment screening comes back with a flag, such as the employee who worked for a company where I was employed, where the flag said he was convicted of embezzlement and the district manager thought he was such a nice guy he had to give him a second chance so worked it out with his federal parole officer without corporate knowledge. To almost no one’s surprise, I ended up interviewing him for forgery and embezzlement when he was writing forged checks to cover services and then bonusing off the increased services. He ended up serving more federal prison time. Predictable, wouldn’t you say?
That is the purpose of the pre-employment screening: to make known to you the predictable. It is your choice as to how much risk you want to take as to what to do with the information once you get it. Maybe you too will be like one of those district managers and say you trust him explicitly… er… I mean implicitly. In any case you have to have the information from employee background checks to make the decision but please remember flags have reasons unless you really can trust that employee to babysit your daughter and handle your personal checkbook.
For more information on employee background checks contact us: 1.770.426.0547 or www.backgroundcheckexperts.net.
I trust this guy explicitly” (of course meaning “implicitly”). I have heard this so many times in my career. It was often when considering someone for employment and a flag came back on pre-employment screening. The district manager who said it knew this person so well that he knew better than the background check company who administered the background check. The discussion would then move to degrees of trust.
The district manager might say “I trust him with my life” and I would counter, “Let’s not go that far; how about, do you trust him with the keys to your car?”. The discussion might continue as to whether or not he trusted him to babysit his daughter or to take care of his checkbook. Inevitably, the district manager would realize that his trust wasn’t that implicit and that possibly employee background checks were done for a reason. At least he wouldn’t bet his job and reputation on it.
As a retail manager or business owner we realize we cannot afford to take chance with our business. We really want to have confidence with that person who is the face of our company, dealing with our customers; or is the custodian of our company’s funds, sitting at the cash register. How can we get that confidence if we really don’t know the person we are hiring except what they are telling us? The answer is through pre-employment screening by a reputable background check company. Pre-employment screening is not a miracle answer. It is practical due diligence however. We have heard over and over and my experience supports that the best predictor of future success is past performance. Isn’t that why we have people submit resumes in the first place? Don’t we want to know how well they performed their jobs in the past and what those jobs were? The same is true for employee background checks. We want to know how ethical they were in the past. Were they subject to criminal temptations? Did they already steal from one of their previous employers? How much confidence would you have then?
In these times, with the “ban the box” movement going on, an employer must be careful of using criminal history data, but that does not mean we should forego employee background checks. Pre-employment screening is still a viable tool but it is just more important we use a reputable background check company and comply with our state’s laws as to when and how we can introduce the pre-employment screening into the process. Your background check company can help you answer that question.
I often hear the argument, “everyone deserves a second chance.” I totally agree but that does not mean you have to give that second chance to them –leave that to your competitor. If your pre-employment screening comes back with a flag, such as the employee who worked for a company where I was employed, where the flag said he was convicted of embezzlement and the district manager thought he was such a nice guy he had to give him a second chance so worked it out with his federal parole officer without corporate knowledge. To almost no one’s surprise, I ended up interviewing him for forgery and embezzlement when he was writing forged checks to cover services and then bonusing off the increased services. He ended up serving more federal prison time. Predictable, wouldn’t you say?
That is the purpose of the pre-employment screening: to make known to you the predictable. It is your choice as to how much risk you want to take as to what to do with the information once you get it. Maybe you too will be like one of those district managers and say you trust him explicitly… er… I mean implicitly. In any case you have to have the information from employee background checks to make the decision but please remember flags have reasons unless you really can trust that employee to babysit your daughter and handle your personal checkbook.
For more information on employee background checks contact us: 1.770.426.0547 or www.backgroundcheckexperts.net.
