Employee Background Checks – The Hidden Roadside Bomb

Gone forever are the days in which an employee (literally) stayed on one job for life. What human resources departments have to content with today is a highly transient workforce. People in perpetual motion for numerous and diverse reasons; not the least includes economic reasons, health reasons, and even reasons relating to criminal activities. This makes conducting backgrounds check an absolute must in order to protect all employees. Failure to perform a “due diligence” search of those people you bring onboard the premises could cost your company millions.

Check Everyone

The courts have ruled- the moment a person sets foot on your premises, they become the company’s responsibility. Even what may be considered as a simple fight, can turn into a litigation nightmare, lasting for many years and costing the company millions in legal fees. One case I’m privy to involved three individuals caught up in a sexual tryst at work. The female employee was dating one person, then switched and starting dating another. The two individuals got into a fight over the female (at work). One employee breaks the other’s jaw. This may be very bad news for the employer. There are two distinct documents (savvy) attorneys will want to subpoena immediately. (1) Your policy on violence and violent acts at work, and (2) the background check you conducted on the employee. Well, in this case, the company failed to conduct any background checks.

Failure Is Not An Option

The failure to conduct background checks, by the human resources department, is now played up big in the courtroom. The problem is now acerbated when plaintiff’s attorney- conducts their own background check and discovers the defendant has a history of violent acts, which (says she) any reasonable background check would have uncovered- had it been conducted. Listen carefully; this is an area HR can ill afford to ignore. Failure is not an option.

Criminals Move Around

Of utmost concern to your HR department today, should be the fact that criminals like to move from state to state searching for weak, uninformed, and untrained individuals in the HR department who do not take this area seriously. Never forget, it doesn’t take a criminal long to commit a crime. Don’t take anything or anyone for granted. Check their background.

Get Educated

Now is the time to get educated on what the courts have to say about background checks. You must consider federal as well as state laws. Make sure you check the perspective employee’s criminal history; on federal, state and local levels. Check out SSN, Driver’s License, even credit history. Again make sure you know, without question, what federal laws have to say regarding these background checks, and examine what your state has to say.

Bottom line:

Your HR department’s failure to conduct background checks can result in lawsuits costing the company millions of dollars. Conversely, doing them the wrong way, unfortunately, can cost you millions as well. Get your HR professionals educated on what the federal and state laws have to says about these vital checks. Armed with this new knowledge, they can now proceed in conducting these “due diligence” searches.

About the Author:

Dr. Cubie Davis King, PhD. is an adjunct professor at National University San Diego, CA in the School of Business, where he teaches Training and Development. His latest work is the Supervisor Core Training System 1.0 (SCTS 1.0). To get more information on this highly effective and engaging training system go directly to his website at website http://www.goldcrowninc.com

Dr. King is a Performance Technologist with a Ph.D in Training & Performance Improvement. His resume includes 9 years military service, and 12 years executive positions with Xerox & CitiGroup. For the past 13 years he has consulted with hundreds of companies on employment laws, and trained thousands of HR professionals in Live Seminars throughout the country. Dr. King has won top performance awards at every level of his storied career and is passionate about improving the performance of employees and business owners. Dr. King takes complicated yet sobering employment laws and makes them palatable and entertaining for everyone on your staff to understand.