Automatic Pre-Employment Screening When Using An Applicant Management System Improves Hiring Processes

Pre-employment screening is not simply a means of cutting down the amount of time it takes to wade through an applicant pool. Though it can be one benefit of the process, there are practical benefits from a Loss Prevention standpoint as well. Often employers will place job ads in various locations in order to fill positions, and they will get a large response to the ad. At first glance, this seems like it would be a good thing for the employer, but then the process of reviewing applications takes place and it becomes obvious that there are many that you would never want on the team. It may be the applications are not completely filled out or there are glaring omissions and gaps in employment. Then further review has to take place to find those people that look like they would be good to interview. Depending on how deep the application pool is this can be a tedious task. From a Loss Prevention point of view it can be a nightmare. Bill Bregar, CEO of Loss Prevention Systems Inc. wants to help stores establish a strong team of employees without concern over a risk of bringing criminals or poor performers on board. Employee background checks and pre-employment screening in addition to applicant management combine to make hiring easier and create a secure environment.

Loss Prevention Systems Inc. is now offering an applicant management center to employers. This new tool will aid owners and managers in the hiring process and reduce the paperwork normally associated with filling position vacancies. For example, LPSI offers background checks to employers to ensure there are no concerns about the applicant’s past. Getting authorization forms signed by applicants could be a pain in the neck in the past. With an applicant management system, LPSI can accomplish the task electronically and include an electronic mouse signature that captures an applicant’s authorization to conduct the search. Additionally, the new system allows background checks to be an automatic part of the hiring process. Applicants will give their consent electronically and the process will begin. The option for manual review and submission is still something that can be done; the choice is up to the prospective employer. The applicant management process will also allow you to create a variety of job positions for different work centers, and you can flag specific questions for applicants to assist in the streamlining of your pool. In other words, if you require specific talents or skills, you can have questions that must be answered in a certain way or the application will not be included for consideration. You can see the benefit that is derived from having a one-stop shop for an application and hiring process.

As a former Loss Prevention Manager, I like the benefits associated with an automatic pre-employment screening process in conjunction with flagging application questions. Questions I have seen for applicants have included, “Have you ever been convicted of a felony?”, “Have you ever shoplifted?” or “Have you ever stolen from your employer?” Flagging these questions can help eliminate applicants who have answered yes and who would be a risk for you to add to your team. The background check can be conducted on the pool of applicants you are considering and if those results conflict with the answers provided in the questionnaire you can use the email support and conduct a further inquiry on the applicant. Having caught employees stealing who did not have employee background checks completed prior to bringing them on board, I know the negative impact those hires can have on a business. Automating this into your hiring process can save you a lot of money and prevent a lot of shortage in the long run.

Employee Background Checks are an important part of any employer’s hiring process to ensure the best qualified talent is brought on a team. Trying to manage all of the parts of the process of hiring can be challenging and time consuming. LPSI can simplify paperwork and conduct the thorough pre-employment screening for your applicants that will streamline your hiring process, so you can spend more time on other aspects of driving sales for your business.

Need information on applicant management? Give us a call at 1.770.426.0547 now.

An Applicant Management Center Streamlines The Hiring Process And Saves Time

Filling open positions on a team can be a logistical nightmare for many reasons and the goal of Loss Prevention Systems Inc. is to assist you in making the process easier with their Applicant Management Center (AMC). The task of hiring becomes more burdensome for the smaller retailers that may not have a dedicated Human Resources Manager to manage all of the pieces involved. Filling position vacancies requires the posting of job ads and having all of the pertinent hiring paperwork ready and available for applicants. Added to that there is the issue of pre-employment screening and possible drug testing procedures. There are federal labor regulations an employer must be in compliance with such as following the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) rules when reviewing an applicant’s credit history. If you are managing your hiring process are you ensuring all I9 documentation is completed and submitted to the proper government agency? It is a lot of work to manage the process not to mention the time involved for a store owner or manager.

The Applicant Management Center offers a number of benefits to clients. For starters an applicant tracking list makes the management of a candidate pool easier to navigate. Sorting through emails and attachments or paper applications is unwieldy. Emails may be received as spam and paper has a tendency to get lost in a shuffle. Is your current hiring process one that involves an applicant coming in and filling out documents? The Applicant Management Center gives you the ability to provide electronic forms and customizable options including a mouse signature to prospective new hires. All of your required forms and documents are stored in one location for each of your candidates. No more digging through file drawers and cabinets looking up information on a particular candidate.

I mentioned earlier the requirement that employers must follow FCRA rules when conducting credit checks on applicants. Retailers should be completing pre-employment screening on all candidates being given serious consideration for a job. There are many reasons for this that will be discussed in future articles but suffice it to say that as a retailer you are hiring people to work with money and financial transaction information. As part of a background check a credit check should be part of this process. The Applicant Management Center will display appropriate FCRA notices to applicants as part of the application. There is no longer a need for managers to have to remember to remind applicants of these regulations and risk being out of compliance.

How many times have you set up a job ad and an application with specific questions you would like to flag that would alert you that this is a person you automatically want to interview or disregard based on the answer to that question? The Applicant Management Center gives employers the ability to flag responses to streamline your interview process. It can be cumbersome to interview every applicant in those situations where a lot of people have applied for one position and many may not be qualified to work in that job. Having a weeding process reduces the time spent sifting through applications and trying to make the decision of who is really meeting your qualification expectations.

Hiring is usually not a fun process and it requires a significant amount of time and effort on the part of a store owner or manager when there is not a Human Resources Department or Manager to take care of the task. Streamlining that process allows those owners to focus their attention on the operations of the store(s) that will drive sales and profits. Loss Prevention Systems Inc. CEO, Bill Bregar sees the problems this causes and is now offering AMC as a way to help those owners and managers avoid getting bogged down in hiring paperwork, pre-employment screening, unnecessary interviewing and direct their time where it needs to be on building a profitable business.

For more information about an Applicant Management System, contact us or call 1.770.426.0547  

EMPLOYEE BACKGROUND CHECKS DISCOVER THE ALARMING TRUTH ABOUT WHO YOU TRUST WITH YOUR COMPANYS ASSETS!

People lie, employee background checks don’t. As part of the pre-employment screening process, background checks should be mandatory in every company. As a Loss Prevention professional, I have seen the value of these checks first hand. In everyday life, we are careful with our wallets, purses, vehicles, and other personal belongings. You would not trust a stranger to hold your wallet just because they say they are “honest and trustworthy” right? Well, why would you trust an employee to have access to everything inside your company? Digging further than just face value should be a part of every retailer’s pre-employment screening process. One employee who is not honest could significantly drain profits right underneath your feet. I see this often with my own eyes while closing out high dollar employee theft investigations in my stores. 

While working Loss Prevention for a retailer, there was an employee who everybody perceived as hard working, friendly, and trustworthy. The employee had a great personality and could speak well about his business. He was well liked by everyone, including my Loss Prevention team. One Monday morning, I received a call from my Operations Manager that we were missing 2 high dollar appliances from the warehouse. I first made sure he checked several possible locations where the merchandise could have been misplaced. But he was correct. Two appliances came in three trucks ago, and we were missing two items. I started reviewing several days of video and running reports to complete an investigation on where these appliances went. I come across some suspicious activity on CCTV where the item looks like it goes out the door to a customer in a red truck. I pull transactions and found that there were no customer pickups or purchases for that item on that day. I now know that the employee we trusted, had deceived us. I continued to investigate the second missing item. I went through several days of video and found that the same employee again pushed an item out the door, to the SAME red truck. No purchases or customer pickups for that specific item that day. I now was 100 percent certain we had a thief working in our building. I then started investigating more and found several more videos on non-paid items leaving the building. Once I had the theft investigation complete, I went to Human Resources to look at his folder. I was shocked at what I found. The employee did not have any type of pre-employment screening! I didn’t understand why we would not have completed one. Human Resources explained to me that they didn’t do any pre-employment screening on the people they hired during the holidays, mass hires, or certain positions in the store. I decided to request one to be completed, due to the investigation I was working on. The well liked employee who has been robbing us blind was a convicted criminal with several prior thefts. If we were conducting employee background checks on everyone we hired, we would have caught this!

I completed an interview on the employee right before we prosecuted him. He admitted to stealing close to $38,000 from us in the short two years he worked there. Although we were happy to prosecute and get a thief out of our building, it shows how much money can walk out of your store in a short period of time. This was just from one person. What about all of the other friendly people we hired during the holidays, our mass hire, or the employees who are working in non-required positions? Employee background checks are inexpensive and provide peace of mind about the type of person you are hiring. This can ensure that you are not hiring a person who is dangerous, untrustworthy, or just not a suitable fit for your business. A simple pre-employment screening, will help you keep the individuals who could potentially harm your business away!

For more information about Employee Background Checks, contact us or call 1.770.426.0547.                                                       

Be Confident That Your Customer’s Personal Information Is Secure By Using A Background Check Company

I have spent the last week shopping for a new used car (yeah, I can’t afford a real new car so anything I buy is new for me). We went to back and forth between two-dealerships where we have made previous purchases. We started the loan paperwork at one of the two and got great news, we have good credit scores…HOORAY! They think we can afford nearly anything on their lot. Reality says they are crazy, I can’t afford those kinds of payments regardless of what my credit score says. Today we made a decision on a used minivan at the second dealership after doing some research on the vehicle we were interested in. We filled out financing paperwork again, paid a down payment and in a couple days go to pick up the new edition to our family. The process made me start thinking about something. I have provided my personal information to two different people and their co-workers in their respective finance offices. While I have dealt with both of the companies and these two particular salesmen, I really don’t know them nor do I know the office workers. I am taking a HUGE risk giving over my social security number, address, proper name, etc. to strangers. I feel reasonably secure about how the information will be handled but I can’t be completely certain my information won’t be stolen. I would feel better if I knew that the businesses conducted employee background checks on their sales associates and staff.
     

Employee Background Checks completed by professionals who have the proper research knowledge, contact information and experience with legal issues surrounding pre-employment screening and background checks can help businesses hire the right people. Do you need someone with a finance degree or licensing to work in the financing department of your company? A background check company can validate if your top candidate has the degree or certifications they have indicated they have on their job application. Does someone want to work for you in a position that will require handling confidential information? Perhaps you need to run criminal background checks on those applicants. You don’t want someone working for you that has been convicted of identity fraud or theft. There is a wide range of information a background check company can legally investigate for you that could turn up a hidden past an applicant is trying to keep from you.
     

The question may arise, “How can my business be held accountable if one of my employees chooses to steal a customer’s credit card information or Social Security Number?” The answer is that as the employer, you are held responsible for the actions of your employees in many circumstances when they harm someone in the course and scope of their employment. According to nolo.com regarding job related accidents or misconduct, “Under a legal doctrine sometimes referred to as “respondeat superior” (Latin for “Let the superior answer”), an employer is legally responsible for the actions of its employees.” If your employee has access to confidential information and they steal that information or use it for illegal activities, you could be potentially held responsible. What can you do to protect your business against the actions of a dishonest employee?  Nolo’s website goes on to say, “Make it your business to run a routine background check before you hire an applicant.” This is exactly what a background check company does. It helps weed out bad apples before you bring them on board.  
     

Don’t take your customers’ safety and security for granted. They trust you to protect their privacy and their financial information. You also need to protect your business from theft, fraud and lawsuits due to dishonest employee activity. Employee background checks are your first line of defense and will minimize the chances of security breaches. 

Get more information on a background check company. Contact us or call 1.770.426.0547 today.

Stressful Workplaces Can Be Improved When Employee Background Checks Are Used Part 2

Job stress will always exist be it through deadlines, the type of work that has to be complete, the random day when Murphy’s Law seems to take over and everything goes wrong and so on. In part 1 of this series I discussed job stresses that are related to bad employees. Most of us have had to work with them before. These are the people that always seem to argue over everything. You come in to work and say a cheerful good morning and Mr. Grumpy Pants wants to know what’s so good about it? You bring in the box of donuts to share with the office and this is the person who gripes because you didn’t include chocolate glazed. I mentioned how some of these people can be avoided simply by conducting pre-employment screenings and finding out they have a checkered work history. You can identify patterns and possible lies in the application process that give you reason to question if this is the person you want to include on your team.  However managers share some responsibility too. How many managers out there don’t want to address performance issues? I see it a lot. There are some managers who don’t have the skills or the nerve to confront poor performers. They excuse bad behavior or poor performance, sometimes hiding behind the excuse that the store is short staffed and can’t afford to lose the employee right now. Are you KIDDING ME?! Think about it folks, if the person is a poor performer, they are either making everyone else on the team work harder OR the team sees that nothing happens to the employee, they get disgruntled and slow down. I’ve seen it happen far too often. I hold the managers responsible who are unwilling to sit down with the employee when poor performance is first identified. Yes, a background check company can help weed the bad apples out, but there still has to be accountability and that starts at the top.
     

Just to be clear, a background check company can be hired to look into all sorts of information that can be important in your hiring decisions for new staff. Maybe you want to make sure the people you are hiring are legally allowed to work in the U.S. A pre-employment screening can be used to verify social security information. Perhaps you want to look out for the safety of your employees so a sex offender registry and criminal history check is completed. Employment history can also be verified, has the applicant worked where and when they said they worked at other locations? There is a wealth of information a background check company can provide that is just not possible for most businesses to obtain on their own. 
     

The information provided can help in making hiring decisions but from time to time a poor employee can slip through the cracks and you have to have managers that are equipped to manage performance or manage someone out the door if behavior doesn’t change. As a Loss Prevention Manager I recall at least two different employees on two different occasions who worked in other departments that I brought on my L.P. team. In both instances the supervisors regularly complained about the performance of these employees but they never seemed to take steps to fix the problem and it was impacting their team’s performance. I took both employees onto my team and let them know that I expected improved performance and attendance or they would be let go. One did really well and eventually took an L.P. job with another company. The second employee continued with his poor attendance and I let him go. I followed our policy on corrective actions and addressed the issue. There was never a surprise when someone’s job was terminated we had already had performance discussions. It wasn’t personal but there was a business to run.
 

Managers need to understand that corrective action should not be a personal conflict it is a matter of enforcing policies in a fair and equitable manner. Employees know who is and who is not performing or is regularly calling out and they get angry when they feel they have to pick up the slack. It is the manager’s job to manage team performance even when it is uncomfortable.
     

Use pre-employment screening to make the best possible hiring decisions. For those employees who slip through the process make sure performance issues are addressed in a timely manner. When managers do that, they keep the rest of the team happy and productive.

Pre-employment screening is important and we can help you with it. Call 1.770.426.0547 and let’s talk.