BY MONSY ALVARADO
Board of education members statewide will be fingerprinted in the coming weeks to comply with a new state law that requires they undergo a criminal history check.
The state Department of Education has sent procedures to school districts, and is urging trustees to get the digital fingerprints done as soon as possible, said Faith Sarafin, spokeswoman for the department.
Employers and organizations, from the small businesses to the corporate giants, knows the benefits of hiring the best people and providing a safe, secure and healthy workplace, both physically and financially, for their employees, customers, shareholders, and the community in which they operate.
It’s important to know about the people before hiring. A new prospective employee is an important responsibility for any organization. An employer who has comprehensively performed a thorough pre employment screening on candidates is able to bring into the organization a highly capable person who will prove to be a tremendous asset in the future.
Regrettably, some organizations don’t take pre employment screening as a mandatory chunk of hiring process, and in result they runs with the risk of exposing their organization to someone who could ultimately become the organization’s greatest danger.
There are three basic reasons which elaborate that “why the pre employment screening process is extremely essential for an employer”.
1. To make the best hiring decision
2. Providing the safe working environment
3. Elimination of legal risks and liabilities
To Make the Best Hiring Decision, Employment Pre Screening is a Must!
It has been said that some applicants will only tell you what you want to hear. Most of the transgressions found in the forged resumes are basically in three categories: Education, Job titles, and dates of employment. By thoroughly verifying information given by an applicant, a company can improve the chances of hiring an individual who has portrayed his or her background, experience, and skills honestly and accurately. Using pre employment pre screening to verify an applicant’s history helps employers make decisions based upon facts.
Providing the Safe Working Environment Is a Primary Goal of an Employer
Acquiring and maintaining the safe working place for the employees is the dream of any employer or any organization. It’s obligatory for the employer to maintain work premises which is free of violence, fraud, theft, sexual and other types of harassment. The financial cost from these problems can be enormous. Additionally, there are other costs that are hard to measure, such as the harm to employee morale or the reputation of the organization. So it’s essential to run a pre employment background check to deter the criminals entering your heaven organization.
Legal Risks and Liabilities Are Extremely Harmful
Legal risks and liabilities is the threatening factor which is directly interconnected with the above two reasons of pre employment screening. The employers are responsible for the safety of employees, customers and anyone who enters the workplace. So its usual that there a risks and liabilities in hiring a wrong employee which can not only results into a trouble for the company but also for the business of the company. So to avoid such losses and risks, every employer must perform an effective pre employment background screening assessment to define the integrity and repute of a company.
Conclusion
The pre-employment background screening process can assist an employer in the hiring of qualified applicants, while simultaneously reducing turnover, deterring fraud, and avoiding litigation. As the job applicants vary widely in their knowledge, skills, abilities, interests, work styles, and other personal characteristics so these differences systematically affect the way people perform or behave on the job. Comprehensive pre employment screening process is able to collect accurate information on job-relevant characteristics that are not often recognized by simply observing the applicant. And most importantly these pre employment background checks can help in minimizing the chances of potential legal vulnerabilities. Thus the information helps assess the fit or match between people and jobs and has proven to have a significant return on investment for employers.
As the reins change hands from Generation X to Millennials over the next 20 years, the work force will be replaced by tech savvy security managers looking for fast, convenient, and portable solutions to employee background checks. The future of preemployment screening is mobile availability, according to Marc Malloy, vice president of HireRight, Inc., the world’s largest background screening software company.
In the future, “the way background checks are ordered, how they’re studied, and how these reports are made, all of these things are going to be on an entirely different platform,” Maloy said in a presentation on the future of preemployment screening earlier today (June 9, 2011) during the monthly ASIS International Information Asset Protection Council and the Privacy and Personnel Information Management Council meeting.
Background information on potential employees is still received by fax or mail, Malloy said, but the demand for digital will only increase over time as managers of the future seek to lessen the time between hiring employees and having them start work.
He also addressed the topic of screening social media profiles of potential employees. Recent statistics show that with the help of Millennials, social media have replaced e-mail as the leading form of communication online; surprisingly, however, Malloy said the demand for social media searches on potential employees is low.
“We don’t believe social network screening is ready, from a maturity standpoint, for businesses to consider that in background screening, but we know they do it anyway,” he said. “[Employers] that do it are looking for drug, violence, or sexual references, “ he said.
There are legal considerations specific to social media, however.
Social media profiles can provide another look at a potential employee, but rejecting potential applicants or new employees because of content on a social media profile is still a gray area and opens a company up for discrimination lawsuits or other types of laws, such as claims of violations of privacy rights. (For more on this, see “How to Avoid Hiring Mishaps” by Lester S. Rosen, Security Management, May 2009.)
Maloy said he only knows of one company that searches social media sites as part of a preemployment background check.
That company is Social Intelligence. On its Web site, it refers to social media searches as a catch-22 situation. “If employers ‘Google’ job candidates, then employers are vulnerable to discrimination charges and job candidates are vulnerable to discrimination. If employers don’t Google job candidates, then employers are vulnerable to litigation due to negligent hire and job candidates are unrecognized for assets, achievements, and contributions,” they present on their homepage.
Social Intelligence said they protect both the employer and the employee by only searching for employer-defined objectionable material. They also provide a service that tracks the public online activity of existing employees. (Security Management has noted that experts warn against looking at social information placed behind a wall for authorized viewers only.)
Other companies are taking it slow. “We’re not super comfortable with it,” Maloy told those listening in to the conference call. “Once there’s one or two cases that set a precedent, then we’ll build a product.”
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