Background screening is an essential aspect of any hiring process that no candidate can escape from. Often overlooked by complacent employers, a proper candidate background check is vital for preventing expensive litigation issues. Employers need to ensure that candidates are true to their words and don’t pose a risk to the company. This is even more relevant today, considering the increase in the remote work atmosphere.
The background check process can be time-consuming and daunting. Employers need to inform that they follow federal, state, or local guidelines, ensuring that an employee doesn’t feel intimidated by the company’s laws.
To smooth the process, employers often avail services from background check companies specializing in checking public and criminal records. There are a variety of background checks that a company may feel like conducting. For example, one can get the best criminal background check at Dallasnews.com.
While every company has specific policies in mind when acquiring talents, there are some basic points in the background check that no one can ignore. This article will highlight those pointers:
Create a Realistic Policy
Before starting the background checking process, a company must create a policy that outlines the program’s scope. Employers must understand the purpose of running the checks and the types of checks to be conducted – criminal records, employment verifications, educational verifications, or credit history checks.
The company may even need to set a procedure to help recruiters assess employee offenses based on the guidelines in the decision matrix. Once policies and procedures are in place, the hiring managers should be trained to conduct the talent acquisition process without any roadblocks.
Companies should understand what they are looking for in prospective employee reports. For example, suppose the company is a financial institution, and the employee background check reveals that the person was arrested for embezzlement. In that case, the company has to determine if that offense is acceptable for the position.
In most cases, companies refrain from hiring employees with a criminal history.
Select a Reliable Background-Checking Company
There are numerous background-checking service providers in the market. While some specialize in public record search, others may focus on criminal history, credit history, education, driving, social media, wealth, birth, location, contact details scanning, and more. So, before picking a service provider, the company must understand what data they seek not to waste money on useless data.
Be Transparent and Fair
As per Fair Credit Reporting Act, to conduct a background check, every employer must issue a disclosure and authorization form to employees as a part of their business process before background checks can be started. The disclosures should be kept simple, transparent, and fair.
Handle Criminal Records Carefully
While background checks can reveal felony misdemeanor cases related to the applicant, the company should not handle the case impulsively. Instead, try determining the gravity of the offense and how much it relates to the job. Using the company decision matrix, hiring managers should discuss whether that person should be allowed to work or continue working in the position.
Issue Pre-Adverse Notifications
Suppose the background check report states reasons that are enough not to hire the potential employee or cause for demoting or terminating an existing employee. In that case, the company should notify the employee in a pre-advance action letter. A waiting period should be given for the employee to come up with errors or inaccuracies in the report.
Consider Turnaround Time
Employment screening takes time. While all background screening firms work differently, sometimes some criminal record reports may have to pass numerous hands before approval.
For example, one criminal record may have to run into individual country courts and state repositories that involve manual clerks, which can cause delays and slow turnaround times.
Interactions with Social Media Data
While the information on social media sites can give employers an idea about the moral character and personality of the potential employee, it is better if hiring managers avoid looking into it. Social media data can be fake and misleading, so engaging a professional organization for future hirees is always better.
Another issue that has been quite prevalent in recent years is the rising cases of marijuana use. There are states where it is legal, so employers need to run a test for marijuana on all applicable employees pre-employment.
Conclusion
With numerous companies starting to operate in an all-remote work environment, it is very important to ensure that the hired people are ethical per company guidelines. The employees who will stay unsupervised must be well-screened to avoid termination at a later stage.
