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Critical Tips for Choosing an Employment Screener

Critical Tips for Choosing an Employment Screener

So what should you be looking for in an employment screening company?

First of all, look for longevity. The longer a company has been providing background checks, the more experienced it is, and as a result, the knowledge, they will have in recognizing the signs of a “suspect” applicant. This is a field where screeners need not only be highly trained, but have extensive experience.

Ask for references and then call them. You want a company with an extensive and positive track record of providing factual information so you can make an informed hiring decision.

Look for the company’s professional memberships in organizations such as ASIS, SHRM, PIHRA, NPRRA, NAPBS, as well as others. This indicates a combined knowledge of the screening and security industries.

Do you as the hiring company; have a complete knowledge of employment law? If not, you need your screening company to know the laws involving background checks. If is extremely beneficial if you hire a company that has an acute knowledge of “negligent hiring” practices, much in the way that an Expert Witness would know.

The company should have an intimate, thorough and long-term knowledge of the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACTA), and the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), as well as Sarbanes-Oxley, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, and the myriad local statutes that may or may not apply to the employment process. They should also have the ability to testify for you in a court of law if need be; or even better, keep you out of court in the first place!

Does your prospective screener have knowledge and understanding of current HR management systems? How about corporate due diligence programs or factual employment screening programs that train people to find fraudulent applications and false identities?

Are you beginning to see how there is so much more to background checks than first meets the eye?

In short, can your vendor help keep you from unwanted litigation? Unless you or someone in your company is an expert in employment law, you are putting your company at significant risk by using an online database provider. If you are using any of the multitudes of online databases, it’s not likely you are protected.

Not only do these online companies increase your risk of exposure, they may even add to it. For example, let’s say you are currently using an employment screener that does not require you to provide a signed release for each applicant. Sounds relatively harmless, doesn’t it?

The truth is what these companies have done is had you waive liability to them when you signed up for an account so they can avoid the time and effort it takes involved in this critical step. Their focus in on increasing their sales; which isn’t necessarily in your company’s best interest.

In the case of a credit bureau audit, your company is now responsible for producing an original signed application and therefore also liable if you don’t have one on file. A good employment screener is not only a long-term certified credit bureau, they also provide signatures for these audits on a regular basis and you should never even know when theses audits occur. A typical lawsuit of this nature could cost your company six figures. There is no upside for a company purchasing background checks to take this kind of risk.

What type of criminal conviction research, hand-researched or online databases, does the company provide? Most companies do not realize that there is absolutely NO single source of information available regarding criminal convictions. It doesn’t exist – anywhere. Do they verify these discoveries against subject identifiers and if so, how?

Does your online provider claim to have worker’s compensation claim records? Any information provided regarding worker’s compensation claims potentially provides a false sense of security for the user. The truth is the only records available for worker’s compensation are appeals, not claims, and much of the available files are sealed because they are not as yet adjudicated. This means the file competency rate for this type of data is about 40% – not good enough.

Does the employment screener have international research capability? If not, how will they screen people you might want to hire from overseas? Without the kinds of connections and a network of relationships developed over long periods of time, this information would be almost impossible to get.

Has the company you want to hire ever been involved in a litigation themselves for improper screening processes? Can they provide you with at least three long-term references? Do they have professional liability insurance including errors and omissions? Are they FACTA, FCRA; CCRRA, and G-L-B compliant?

And of course you need to know the practical things such as cost, turnaround time and reporting method. Many competent employment screeners are listed in publications such as the Security Industry Buyers Guide as well as industry publications such as those connected with the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM) and the American Society for Industrial Security (ASIS).

What is needed now in this industry is a standardization of compliance for employment screeners and someone to step up and create an industry co-operative that can police it.

Find out how to protect your company against Workplace Violence and Negligent Hiring Lawsuits

For Employers Who are Still Confused about EEOC Guidance

For Employers Who are Still Confused about EOC Guidance

Though employers have had a few months now to become familiar with the U.S. Equal Employment Occupation Commission’s guidance on the use of criminal background checks, questions and confusion about how best to respond have only grown.

The guidance, issued April 25, is broad in its scope and specificity, essentially recommending that employers now only ask to see criminal records when such inquiries can be proven to be job-related. It also recommends that HR professionals, recruiters and hiring managers not automatically reject candidates with criminal backgrounds — except for jobs in which particular convictions logically have no place — but that they now conduct “individualized assessments” of those candidates to avoid liability under Title VII.

The good news is Tom Lawson just gave a presentation for 100 HR people that really helps you understand how to make the right hiring decisions regarding these new guidelines.

You can review the PowerPoint presentation here

We will have a video up of these talk as well real soon.

New Massachusetts Health Care Reform Law Makes Important Changes to the “Fair Share Contribution” Rules Affecting Employer-Sponsored Group Health Plans

New Massachusetts Healthcare Reform Law

New Massachusetts Health Care Reform Law Makes Important Changes to the “Fair Share Contribution” Rules Affecting Employer-Sponsored Group Health Plans

By Alden J. Bianchi,  H. Andrew Matzkin,  and Patricia A. Moran

The Massachusetts Legislature recently passed, and Governor Deval Patrick signed into law, S. 2400, “An Act Improving the Quality of Health Care and Reducing Costs through increased Transparency, Efficiency and Innovation” (the “Act”). The Act is the third in a series of comprehensive health care legislative efforts in Massachusetts beginning with the 2006 enactment of the then historic Massachusetts health care reform law. For an overview of the Act, please see our July 31, 2012 advisory.

While the Act’s principal purpose is to address issues of health care cost, quality, and transparency, it makes a minor though important change to the way that employers determine their liability under the “fair share contribution testing” rules, which form the core of the employer responsibility provisions of the Massachusetts health care reform law.

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HireRight to Pay $2.6 Million Penalty for Multiple Violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act

HireRight charged by FTC and pays $2.6 million

FTC Charges HireRight Solutions Incorrectly Listed Criminal Convictions on Reports of Some Consumers An employment background screening company that provides consumer reports to companies nationwide will pay $2.6 million to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act by failing to use reasonable procedures to assure the maximum possible accuracy of information it provided, failing to give consumers copies of their reports, and failing to reinvestigate consumer disputes, as required by law.

The case against HireRight Solutions, Inc. represents the first time the FTC has charged an employment background screening firm with violating the FCRA, and is the second-largest civil penalty that the FTC has obtained under the Act. Only the 2006 $10 million civil penalty against consumer data broker ChoicePoint, Inc. was larger. The Department of Justice filed the complaint and proposed order against HireRight Solutions on the FTC’s behalf. Under the settlement, the company also is barred from continuing its alleged illegal practices.

Read FTC report here

Bill to mandate background checks for volunteers

Bill to mandate background checks for volunteers

School districts may soon be required to give more volunteers criminal background checks before clearing them to work with children, in accordance with the pending New Jersey School Bus Safety and Child Protection Act.

Northern Highlands School District may be required to give more volunteers, such as parent chaperones, criminal background checks before allowing them to work with the school-age children in accordance with a pending bill called the New Jersey School Bus Safety and Child Protection Act. The bill passed the N.J. Assembly and is currently in the N.J. Sentate Education Committee.

“It passed the Assembly in May and it is now in the Senate Education Committee,” said Northern Highlands Board of Education President Barbara Garand at the July 16 board meeting. “[The bill] will require districts to do criminal background checks for certain school volunteers.”

The bill states, “A facility, center, school, or school system under the supervision of the Department of Education and board of education which cares for, or is involved in the education of children under the age of 18 may require criminal history record checks for individuals who, on an unpaid voluntary basis, provide services that involve regular contact with pupils.”

Highlands currently performs criminal background checks on employees and some volunteers.

“The background checks we do now are a precaution and safety measure,” Garand said in an email. “It’s done with all substitutes, teachers and school employees.”

At the meeting, Keenan added that the school checks volunteers, as well, if they have regular contact with students.

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