Protect Your Assets With Employee Background Checks

There are times of the year it seems everybody is hiring, and with so many qualified people to choose from, it’s imperative to make the right choice. I am in that very situation right now, along with a few of our other stores in the area. Unfortunately, I’m looking for help because the manager before me did not use a quality background check company to vet a guy I just had to help terminate.

There are certain things you can do as a hiring manager. First of all, you do need to check the applicant’s references. (I’ve had someone list a dead man as one of his professional references.) People do overstate their education and enhance their job histories. You can call the college and universities listed to verify the degree they have listed. You could also call their previous employers listed to verify their tenure. I also like to use the web and just do a quick check on their name to make sure nothing wild pops up about them. That said, you can’t find the critical items in a potential employees past. That’s why you need to check into a background check company. A pre-employment screening can save your company a lot of money in the long run. First of all, they offer a more complete check and they will stay in compliance with all local laws and regulations. There are legalities surrounding what you can or can’t look into when conducting employee background checks. I’ve hired someone recently that was from out of state, and she had to provide an additional signed form giving permission to the county courthouse from where she was from to release the information. A good background check company will take care of that extra footwork for you.    

The key is getting as much information about the applicant as possible to make sure you make the right choice. You not only want to pick the best person for the job opening; you also don’t want to let the right person get away by picking the wrong one. People can have excellent interview skills and make themselves look like amazing candidates. Then you hire them and it’s you that’s the biggest loser. The manager before me hired a guy from a job fair. He talked a good game and claimed to have had an extensive and grand work history. The former manager called the references he had listed and bought the guy’s stories hook, line, and sinker. Amazingly, he failed to get a thorough pre-employment screening and I ended up firing the guy for stealing pain pills. It didn’t stop there.  A couple days later we found ourselves in the office with representatives from the DEA and board of pharmacy. I can tell you that was not a fun time, and not a conversation I want to be part of again. One by one they called all the other technicians to the office to take statements and give them the third degree. This is just another good example of why employee background checks are so very important. Save yourself the time and money and invest in a reputable background check company. In work environments where your staff works with prescription drugs, sensitive documents or records, and certain groups of people like the elderly or children, employee background checks are not negotiable. Your company can be held liable for any harm or damages caused by an employee with a criminal record.  

For more information on Background Checks, contact us or call 1.770.426.0547

The Hidden Costs Of Not Conducting Employee Background Checks

Have you ever had to let an employee go after they have been caught stealing, or lying about something they had omitted on an application? If you have had to let an employee go, have you ever asked yourself afterwards if there was something you should have caught on their application or during the interview process that could have prevented the hire in the first place? Even an experienced hiring manager can overlook information on an application that might have raised a red flag about an applicant. Employee Background Checks can be invaluable in making the right hiring decisions.

There are many reasons businesses have to fill positions, sometimes it is due to growth, which is the best of all reasons. Positions also open up because employees leave to seek opportunities elsewhere for personal reasons. Unfortunately, positions frequently open up due to an employee who has been caught stealing, violating company policy or for falsifying an application. Many times the employees in the last category could have been weeded out with a pre- employment screening. Thorough employee background checks can include such things as criminal background checks, employment credit checks, motor vehicle records and even sex offender registries. When a check confirms a problem exists, the hiring process can stop for that applicant and save a lot of problems for an employer down the road.

One of the commonly overlooked expenses of running a business is the hiring process. When an employer has to fill a position there is the expense of advertising, whether it is posted online or in a newspaper. Someone’s time is required to review applications and schedule interviews, using time that might be better spent elsewhere in a business. Larger companies have Human Resource personnel that may handle most of this, but I can tell you from experience, other store managers assist in the interview process. Small businesses may have to rely on an office manager or even the owner/operator to handle all of the hiring functions. If managers are focused on staffing, who is overseeing the operations critical to running the business? Hiring is always going to take place, but how much hiring could be avoided if a strong pre-employment screening program was being utilized?

Consider also that the hiring process does not end when the employee is hired and has accepted a position. The new employee has to be properly trained for the new position they were hired to fill. What costs are expended by businesses in training and development? It doesn’t matter whether someone is hired to bag groceries or supervise a shift, that employee must be properly trained. Failure on the part of an owner or manager to properly train a new employee has its own consequences. So how much time and effort will be expended training that new employee? That may depend on the job, the trainee and the quality of the trainer. The bottom line is that it is still time and money that perhaps could be better spent elsewhere.

If a company is filling a vacancy because an employee was caught stealing or committing fraud, what is THAT cost? What did the employee take? Was it cash, merchandise, or company property that was stolen? Even when the dishonest employee is caught and admits to theft, it can be difficult to be certain ALL theft was accounted for in the termination process. Can an employer be certain the former employee will pay restitution? Did the employee defraud a customer? Can that even be quantified in terms of loss of prestige for the business and the negative experience of the customer? A pre-employment screening might be enough for a business to avoid that nightmare.   

The process of hiring and staffing a business can be a drain on a business’s resources. It requires time and money to recruit and train new employees. If the wrong person is hired it can cost a business a lot more than time and money, it can result in lost merchandise, money and even reputation. Using pre-employment screening and employee background checks can assist businesses in avoiding hiring pitfalls and protect the investment spent in the hiring process.  

For more information about employee background checks contact us or call 1.770.426.0547

“Ban the Box” Does not Ban the Evaluation of Criminal History

“Ban the box!  Ban the Box!” The mantra is picking up steam as the movement heads across the country. What is “the box” you ask? The “box” is the small box for a checkmark found on many job applications across the country asking about one’s criminal history experience. The “Ban the Box” movement has resulted in over 100 cities and 18 states across the country enacting laws that in effect banned the box and prohibited employers from asking the question on employment applications. Many people misinterpret the box as prohibiting employers from ever considering criminal history, which the movement would likely relish; however that is not the case. Employers are still permitted to run employee background checks. It is the timing of questions about the applicant’s criminal background check that is effected by the box. 

In states that still have the box on their employment applications, employers are permitted to inquire about criminal histories on the applications and they use those answers as their first pre-employment screening and eliminate potential candidates for positions based on their having checked the box. In states that have banned the box employee background checks can still be run but they can only be inquired at the formal interview or after a conditional offer. This purportedly allows the candidate to present their best side, should they have a criminal record, without fear of being eliminated and never having a chance to get to the interview. Proponents of the movement cite high criminal history rates caused by tougher sentencing standards, especially in regard to drug offenses, which are also reportedly unfair to minority populations.

That may be true and no one would likely argue against the belief that one often deserves a second chance when they make a mistake and may be a completely different person than they were when they had their brush with the law. The question remains as to how much risk you as an employer are willing to accept. One premise of employee background checks is they are important because “the best indicator of future success is past performance.” In other words, one who has committed crimes and taken shortcuts in the past in likely to do so again in the future.

My experience in both the public sector in law enforcement and the private sector in security and loss prevention has found this premise to hold a great deal of credence. I can recall many instances where companies I have worked for decided that the CEO or other senior executive’s “gut instinct” of a person was more reliable than the pre-employment screening completed by our reputable background check company. The result was almost inevitably that the company would regret its decision to make an exception on the background check policy and hire someone with a criminal history indicative of problems. 

One included a district manager who had a history of drug offenses and a couple of tips were received indicating he was using again or still. He then is directed to take a drug test (driving himself of course) and has to stop at a local head shop to get a bag of synthetic urine that you then microwave to body temperature and attach to your leg. He probably should have not microwaved it so long as the lab technician had to inform us that our employee was in mortal danger because his urine was in excess of 110 degrees. Even after that blunder, his advocating executive let him agree to drug counseling and he was once again caught reoffending and confessed to us he never stopped since his criminal arrest for possession with intent that should have been a flag to eliminate him from consideration.

Pre-employment screening by a reputable background check company is our best defense (if we listen to them) to the risk posed by hiring someone with a checkered past.  It gives us the opportunity to evaluate the potential risk even in states where they “ban the box.” Just as the applicant deserves the right to at least get in front of you to present their experience, you deserve the right to have a background check company evaluate the risk posed by their background. You have to know it to evaluate it.

For more information on employee background checks contact us or call 1.770.426.0547. 

Future Employee of the Month, or Sneaky Crook – Employee Background Checks

Hiring a new employee to join your team can be a stressful process, especially if you run a small business. Some larger companies may have a revolving door of employees coming and going, but with a smaller company, you likely won’t have that many employees working for you. That’s why it’s so important to make good, informed decisions when hiring. Employee background checks are necessary to ensure that you are making the best possible hiring decision for your company. The people you hire will be a direct reflection of your company, so you want to be sure you find trustworthy employees to be a part of your team. Most jobs today have a great number of candidates applying for the same position, so to keep costs down, you will definitely want to narrow down the candidates before a background check company runs the pre-employment screening for your potential new hires.

After you interview all of the candidates for the position and make your decision on the best person for the job, the next step is pre-employment screening, or having a background check company conduct a search to see if your potential hire has a criminal history. Whether this information will disqualify the candidate or not, it is good to know who you are really hiring to work in your business, and you can’t just take someone’s word for if they are a good person or not. Businesses that run background checks as a condition for employment usually notify the applicant and the applicant signs off, knowing that a check is going to be conducted. You would think at this point if you had a bad history, you might not continue and consent to the check. That’s not usually how it works. You would be surprised at some of the information that can be learned about applicants that you thought for sure were going to be your next employee of the month.

Do your research and find a reputable background check company that will run a thorough search on the potential employee’s past. There are reviews online for everything, including companies that conduct pre-employment screening, so do your homework and choose a company that has good reviews and won’t just take your money and run, while providing you with an inaccurate history on your potential employee. If you have any doubts that you need employee background checks for your business, just watch or read the news.  It won’t take long for you to see the horror stories that exist about business owners losing thousands of dollars at the hands of their own employees.

Not every employee you hire will cause you a loss, and not every employee will take a ton of merchandise or money, but pre-employment screening will help you reduce the chances of hiring someone that has already been arrested or fired for these kinds of dishonest activities. I remember seeing one particular story about a young woman that had worked for a business for several years, and she was taking a little bit at a time, which added up to a whole lot in the end. In fact, the employee was able to steal around $45,000 worth of cash in the seven years that she worked for the business. Can you imagine what kind of damage that kind of loss would cause your business? It’s best not to take chances when looking to bring someone new on your team, because if you don’t run employee background checks, this person could wind up working for you next.  

For more information about employee background checks, contact us or call 1.770.426.0547

Employee Background Checks Make Knowledge Your Ally!

What we don’t know won’t hurt us.” “Ignorance is bliss.” “Putting your head in the sand protects your head.” “The unaware are innocent.” We have all heard one or more of these anecdotes and probably have subscribed to their premises once or twice. I submit to you though that there is at least one time when what we don’t know CAN hurt – maybe even destroy us. That time is when we go to hire someone to work for us. Courts have ruled again and again on “negligent hiring” or “negligent retention” citing that we have a duty to know or at least to try to know what risk a future employee might cause not only to our company but to our customers and public in general. This requires us to exercise due diligence in trying to learn about future employees as we have shown again and again that past performance predicts future success. One way to mitigate any potential damage and exercise good due diligence is to conduct employee background checks.

As a police commander I was involved in the hiring of police officers and we took this responsibility very seriously, conducting extensive checks through NCIC (National Crime Information Center) and the state criminal information system databases; driver’s history checks; extensive interviews with neighbors, employers, relatives, friends, and others; and administering a polygraph (lie detector) examination. Unfortunately, we do not have the option of having trained investigators and confidential databases at our fingertips like law enforcement.

Pre-employment screening done by a reputable background check company can help us find out things about that applicant that we have a duty to know and give us the knowledge to make a sound hiring decision. It has never been more important in our history than now to have a strong background check company that can navigate the legal waterways and get us our information ethically and legally. How we conduct this process is being closely scrutinized in light of “ban the box” movements across the United States.

Ignorance is not an option. I have seen many examples of “not knowing” hurting. One example would be the employee who kidnapped a young girl and held her at his home for days at which time it was found out he was a convicted felon and pedophile. Another might be the convicted felon who staged a robbery in our store and gave our money to the criminal gang with whom he was affiliated. A third might be the incidents with racial unrest occurring in a store with gang graffiti showing up and then finding out that our manager was a convicted felon and leader of a major criminal street gang. It would have been nice to know all of these things and we could have known and should have known if we had conducted a pre-employment screening.

Most of these were incidents of embarrassment but it could be worse. There was the incident where a convicted felon was hired and sexually assaulted a female customer in the store during store hours. He is serving a long criminal sentence but the female victim suffered lasting consequences from a sexually transmitted disease and the potential for civil liability still looms. This is not unusual and is the chance you take if you decide to put your head in the sand and “not know.” At least if you conduct employee background checks and find out information that might be a red flag you can make a hiring decision. You can also include that information with your other screening tools and your interviews to make an intelligent decision as to whether or not this applicant is one you would like to take a risk on and bet your store. That is what I said:  bet your store. That is what some of us do when we ignore pre-employment screening or don’t rely on the results from our background check company. We bet our store that the person is not going to do anything that will expose us to liability that could take away our store.

Employee background checks give us knowledge and remove our head from that hole in the sand. We can’t make a good decision if we don’t know and we have to make a good decision. Knowledge is our ally and ignorance our enemy!

For more information on employee background checks contact us or call 1.770.426.0547