Data Facts Background Screening Blog

Running a background check on your potential employees is a smart, easy, cost-effective way to gain insight into their history, experience, and behaviors. Serious issues that may not be apparent on a person’s CV or in the interview may be uncovered with a simple criminal records search or employment verification.

In the past few years, there has been a growing trend of eliminating the box on the job application that asks if the applicant has prior criminal convictions. This is know as the "Ban the Box" movement. North Carolina is the latest in a long line of states and other municipalities to pass "Ban the Box" guidance. 

A Lancaster Co., Pennsylvania nursing home is now paying $7.5 million after being held responsible for the sexual assault of one of its patients by a fellow resident. On the surface, that may sound incredibly unfair, but the details of the case highlight a growing problem in the senior care industry. The assailant was a man with a known criminal history of sexual misconduct, and the nursing home knew of his record. 

Educating our clients on important industry changes and regulations that affect their businesses is one of Data Facts' top goals.

California employers, and companies with branches or divisions in California, should familiarize themselves with the following information. 

*Originally posted on Littler.com by Jennifer Mora. 

 Pre-employment screening effectively weeds out any "bad" employees forever, right?

Perhaps you are an HR Professional looking to streamline your background screening best practices and increase your successful hiring rate. Or, you have noticed that your background check process still allows unsavory applicants through to your new employee pool.

No matter the reason, it's a good idea to realize hiring is a slippery slope. Prepare for a successful new year by reviewing and revising your company's hiring practices. 

And this means understanding the criminal records search and how it helps get the most out of the background screening process. 

Here are four big DO's to employ in your criminal records search process for 2016. 

Perhaps the biggest obstacles that hiring managers must remember is:

Don’t judge a book by its cover!

VERIFY! VERIFY! VERIFY

Employers who do not perform a thorough background check on potential employees are opening themselves to increased risks of choosing a bad hire, hiring lawsuits, and embarrassing public gaffs.

According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 75% of employees steal from their employers, with the majority of those doing so repeatedly A typical business loses as much as 5% of revenues due to employee fraud. This margin could be the difference in keeping your doors open or shutting them!

Employees are 15 times more likely to steal than a non-employee (according to the National Federation of Independent Business).

Staggering figures like these may be hard to accept, but unless set policies to minimize theft are in place in advance,your business could be very negatively effected by employees with sticky fingers. 

Why Employee Theft Happens

There are 2 obvious reasons why employee theft is such a prevalent problem.

Opportunity - most  businesses are vulnerable to employee theft. Many business owners delegate day to day bookkeeping, banking, and accounts receivable responsibilities to one or more employees, usually those who are most trusted.

As an owner, you may have a ballpark sense of your banking and accounts receivable information, but for the most part, you concentrate on your work and leave the "number-crunching" to others.

Motive - Once an employee is caught stealing, the motive usually becomes clear. The employee may have an unknown addiction - to gambling, drugs or something else. The employee may simply be living beyond his or her means. Some employees justify stealing by feeling the company owes them something 'more'. 

Often, an employee rationalizes the theft while continuing to steal larger and larger amounts. The employee may have more sinister and specific motives, such as harboring bitterness at being passed over for promotion or being demoted and intent on proving that he or she is too smart to get caught stealing.

Measures should be put into place to protect your company from employee theft. Here are five tips for preventing or stopping employee theft:

Violence in the workplace is a serious issue for large and small employers alike. 

OSHA defines workplace violence as any act or threat of physical violence, harassment, intimidation, or other threatening disruptive behavior that occurs at the work site. It ranges from threats and verbal abuse to physical assaults and even homicide. It can affect and involve employees, clients, customers and visitors. Homicide is currently the fourth-leading cause of fatal occupational injuries in the United States. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI), of the 4,547 fatal workplace injuries that occurred in the United States in 2010, 506 were workplace homicides. However it manifests itself, workplace violence is a major concern for employers and employees nationwide.

Below, we will discuss 4 ways employers can reduce workplace violence and provide their employees and clients a safe working environment.