Do you know how much it cost to hire an employee? It’s not just the price you pay per hour worked. That is only the beginning. When I look at employee retention and unnecessary turnover, I calculate the true cost of a new hire.

I need to have a base wage for the associate. Then I need to determine how many hours of training am I going to give them. I will then need to add in the hours it takes for their trainer to adequately train them on proper execution of company standards and tasks. Realistically, I should also know how many hours it will take this associate to really work at full speed once they are done with formalized training. Should I include the payroll used to compensate for the trainer and trainee’s unproductive time (while in the training mode)? Yep! And don’t forget, I have to spend time training the trainer to make sure they know what to do.

That is a lot of payroll!

Imagine if you hire someone who turns out to be a total deadbeat. Not only will you end up replacing that associate, but also you potentially will lose your good associates along the way.

Taking the time to run pre employment screening and background checks will help save money in the long run. Hiring the right candidate the first time will save countless hours of payroll dollars. Background checks are designed to weed out the bad apples so you can focus on running a successful business, not a perpetual training facility.

For more information on background check experts , background checks , criminal background checks , employee background checks or pre employment screening contact us at the background check company or call 1.770.426.0547 

Critical thinking is defined in the 2009 Pearson Education as follows: A business leader who thinks clearly, sorts through the clutter and anticipates well is using his or her critical thinking skills. A large amount of companies are using a critical thinking assessment prior to hiring or promoting candidates for management positions. Using this definition, it is not so far fetched that background checks should be just as important as a soft skill like critical thinking.

Pre employment screening is critical to successfully hiring a candidate. Running a thorough and comprehensive background check lays the foundation for what you as a company require from your personnel. You are sending a message to all potential candidates that you expect and will only accept the best. Good behaviors in both professional and personal lives are required for your open position.

I always recommend following up pre employment screening with an additional background check before an employee is promoted. It continues to reinforce your acceptance of only the best person for the position. No one can loosen the reigns on their personal lives, just because they have been hired on to your company.

Going back to that definition of a critical thinker, each of those traits will shine through in a background check. Did they anticipate well for their financial future and stay out of uncontrollable debt? Did they think clearly in difficult or stressful situations and avoid run ins with the law? Were they able to sort through personal clutter to stay gainfully employed versus termination?

Use your assessments to find critical thinkers. Use background checks to reiterate their level of success.

 For more information on background check experts , background checks , criminal background checks , employee background checks or pre employment screening contact us at the background check company or call 1.770.426.0547 

When you think about employee background checks, you don’t often think about how they might stop internal theft. I had an issue a few years ago with a group of my employees who were stealing from our company.

 There was one associate who would make his purchases with his friend at the customer service desk. That was all within policy. What wasn’t in policy was the additional merchandise that was not rung up. It was thousands of dollars worth of merchandise. After we questioned him, he told us it was all being shipped back to his native country.

 When we went to question the other three associates involved, we could not locate them. They quit or walked out of the store while we questioned the first employee. We took the case to our local law enforcement who then began to search for these individuals.

 After several individuals were brought into the police station, it was clear that the employees we had hired used fake IDs with stolen information. We have yet to locate our ex- employees.

 Had we been background check experts, we might have been able to catch the discrepancy when these individuals first applied for jobs. Had we hired background check experts, they would have done what we could not. Running adequate employee background checks aren’t just about did they have any prior convictions. It is a way for pre employment screening to do its job and tell you the person you are hiring is EXACTLY who you think it is.

 If we had done this in the first place, we might have saved us thousands in stolen merchandise and valuable resources in tracking them down.

 For more information on background check experts , background checks , criminal background checks , employee background checks or pre employment screening contact us at the background check company or call 1.770.426.0547 

 

When you think about employee background checks, you don’t often think about how they might stop internal theft. I had an issue a few years ago with a group of my employees who were stealing from our company.

There was one associate who would make his purchases with his friend at the customer service desk. That was all within policy. What wasn’t in policy was the additional merchandise that was not rung up. It was thousands of dollars worth of merchandise. After we questioned him, he told us it was all being shipped back to his native country.

When we went to question the other three associates involved, we could not locate them. They quit or walked out of the store while we questioned the first employee. We took the case to our local law enforcement who then began to search for these individuals.

After several individuals were brought into the police station, it was clear that the employees we had hired used fake IDs with stolen information. We have yet to locate our ex- employees.

Had we been background check experts, we might have been able to catch the discrepancy when these individuals first applied for jobs. Had we hired background check experts, they would have done what we could not. Running adequate employee background checks isn’t just about whether or not the employee may have had prior convictions. It is a way for pre employment screening to do its job and tell you the person you are hiring is EXACTLY who you think it is.

If we had done this in the first place, we might have saved us thousands in stolen merchandise and valuable resources in tracking them down.

For more information on background check experts , background checks , criminal background checks , employee background checks or pre employment screening contact us at the background check company or call 1.770.426.0547

One of the biggest threats to the stability of any business is internal theft.  It can take many forms and be committed by people who you may believe are beyond trustworthy.  Beyond implementing round-the-clock surveillance on all of your employees to ensure they aren’t robbing you there is another way to make sure you can trust your staff.

Requiring pre employment screening and criminal background checks for all new hires is a surefire way to weed out large swaths of undesirables before they even make it to the interview process.  Depending on the type of positions you are trying to fill you can even, in most cases, request the background check experts make the pre employment screening rather precise in what it is screening for.  For example, should you be hiring for a position that requires a large amount of driving, it would be foolish not to eliminate applicants with a history of not adhering to traffic laws.

Employee background checks can also be implemented at will should you feel the need to do so.  If utilized in a manner similar to random drug screenings or as a tool to screen employees who may be up for a promotion, these background checks can serve as a safeguard against allowing people to gain greater responsibilities within the company. 

If it wasn’t for such a situation, the company I work for would have promoted a woman who had apparently been arrested for check cashing fraud at a nearby casino a year AFTER she had been originally hired.  Thankfully, through the use of required advancement background checks this woman was never elevated to a position that would have granted her access to nightly store deposits. 

 For more information on background check experts, background checks, criminal background checks, employee background checks or pre employment screening contact us at the background check company or call 1.770.426.0547 

 

Most people never see what goes on behind the closed doors of prominent hotel chains. It is assumed that all business matters especially the business of background checks have been addressed in the most professional ways possible and that any issues one might see is a minor glitch which is handled expeditiously. Even with my background in Loss Prevention this was also my mindset until I had a very good friend of mine open my eyes to the challenges of his job at a very large hotel located in the center of a huge city. My friend had worked as an operations manager for a few prominent businesses in the city and was valued as a manager who could assess talent and manage a large amount of people to complete numerous tasks which led to the business running smoothly in an urban busy setting. We were just enjoying a couple of drinks after a delicious holiday dinner with our families when he decided to run his latest job by me along with an alarming employee issue that had been dropped in his lap. Robert, my friend, had been hired by a prominent hotel to be the Director of restaurant operations. Robert immediately went to work assessing his team’s talent and what he found was a human resource nightmare. Even though this hotel was a very large and successful it was a family owned business which placed family members in key positions without the experience or credentials to fulfill those positions. One position in particular was the VP of Human Resources. Robert could not understand why many key positions in his team were filled with people who lacked the experience to fulfill their jobs until he started reviewing the hotel’s pre employment screening process.

The review of the pre-employment screening the hotel had in place was the beginning of the proverbial rabbit hole. You merely filled out a basic job application and submitted a resume, one interview later you knew whether you were hired or not. There were no background checks of any type conducted for any position. At this point the horrified look on my face had Robert a bit concerned, I almost passed out when he told me they did not have a background check company on retainer nor used criminal background checks and did not even make simple phone calls to verify resumes. I was simply astounded that they did not conduct any type of employee background check. At this point Robert clued me into the fact that the VP of Human Resources was a member of the hotel owner’s family and did not possess the necessary skills to employ a proper human resource program, including background checks.

At this point I had to stop Robert and start educating him on the basics of employing a preemployment screening strategy. I explained to him that if he did the homework and put together a solution that included a variety of background check experts to choose from that the VP of human resources would embrace the idea as her own. The VP wanted to do the right thing, she just did not have the experience nor the understanding to realize what needed to be done. I started explaining to Robert the importance of employee background checks by using his administration manager as an example. Robert realized just after he started that his administration manager was not communicating in a timely way via email nor was he getting the pertinent reports from this manager that he had requested. After meeting with the manager he discovered that this person who had an impressive resume could not adequately construct an email let alone use the spreadsheet program to file daily and weekly reports. During the meeting the manager admitted that he had purposefully used fraudulent information in his resume to obtain the position. A simple employee background check verifying previous employment would have stopped this person from even making it to the interview process. Upon further investigation Robert also found out that this employee had been convicted of retail theft and was currently on probation.

Once again, a simple criminal background check would have brought this information out in the open before this employee ever walked through the front doors of the hotel. It would have shown that he had in fact lied on his job application regarding whether or not he was convicted of a crime. As we delved deeper into the pre employment screening issue Robert was realizing that he needed to consult with background check experts to formulate a proper hiring process within the hotel.

In the end Robert was able to sit down with several members of the owners family including the VP of Human Resources and communicate the importance of retaining a reputable background check company. The good thing was Robert came out of the meeting with his job still intact and a budget to obtain the help of background check experts. Now Robert’s welcomed challenge is to choose the best suited background check company for the hotel. As a follow up I also explained the importance of conducting criminal background checks that encompass all of the potential employees former addresses and that as a suggestion to run state wide criminal background checks to ensure all counties are covered within a state. It was one heck of a roller coaster ride for Robert but in the end he was able to bring the pre employment screening problem to the forefront before anymore serious problems occurred.

For more information on background check experts , background checks , criminal background checks , employee background checks or pre employment screening contact us at the background check company or call 1.770.426.0547

The underlying motivation for conducting pre employment screening is to prevent a bad hire so it’s difficult to assess the ROI of incidents that do not occur.  I believe there are two ways to determine the ROI of pre employment screening.

First, employers need to establish the value of avoiding workplace violence, legal action or any other type of incident that could adversely impact productivity.  For example, background check experts argue that up to ten percent of all candidates have a criminal record.  Let’s assume background checks cost $50 USD per candidate and an employer outsources 10 background checks per month to a background check company.

The monthly cost of outsourcing background checks is $500 USD or $6000 USD per year.  Considering the impact a single bad hire can have each business must determine if the cost of employee background checks is worth avoiding the cost of hiring 10 problem employees.  Seems like a small price to pay to avoid costly litigation, workplace violence, employee theft or any other incident that could significantly cost more than $6000 USD per incident.

Second, employers must weigh the benefits of reducing turnover versus the cost of employee background checks.  Businesses can calculate the cost of each turnover by breaking down the line item costs associated with filling a vacant position.  A few associated costs to consider are; interviews, training and development or employee benefits.  The list goes on but rest assured once all of the expenses are itemized it’s easy to see how turnover costs start to mount.

For more information on background check experts, background checks, criminal background checks, employee background checks or pre employment screening contact us at the background check company or call 1.770.426.0547 

I’ll take this opportunity to address 5 frequently asked questions or concerns that arise when employers consider outsourcing pre employment screening.

1.  Why is it beneficial to outsource criminal background checks?

Many human resources, security or risk management departments are already handling numerous tasks so it’s important to use a background check company to ensure important details are not overlooked.

2.  Do background checks invade privacy?

No!  Hiring managers can only investigate an applicants “public life.”  For example, criminal background checks are the process of researching courthouse records for evidence of convicted offenses.  This process does not invade personal privacy since criminal records are a matter of “public record.”

3.  Is pre employment screening cost effective?

Yes!  Background check experts believe employee background checks typically cost less than the total cost of a full day’s work for the same candidate.  Now consider the risk involved when you gamble with unchecked applicants… the cost benefit ratio favors screening to encourage higher retention rates.

4.  Do background checks discourage applicants?

No!  Qualified candidates consider the process to be sound business practice so employee background checks actually encourage applicants to apply because they reinforce the message that your business is profitable and safe.

5.  Is pre employment screening difficult to implement?

No!  The process of outsourcing background checks can be handled quickly and effectively by a background check company. Background check experts can help any employers develop a program and provide all of the required pre employment screening forms in a very short time.

For more information on background check experts, background checks, criminal background checks, employee background checks or pre employment screening contact us at the background check company or call 1.770.426.0547

Have you ever hired a new employee and then 3 months later seriously questioned your interview skills and business judgment?  I know I have.  It is amazing how some people can look so good on paper and in an interview room, yet we get stuck with their evil twin once they punch into work.  One way to help weed out the bad apples from the proverbial bunch is to utilize employee background checks and a pre employment screening before making a job offer to a perspective candidate.

There are several different types of employee background checks that can be performed.  It really just depends on the type of company you run and the position being filled.  I recommend consulting a professional Background Check Company to conduct your checks.  A good Background Check Company should do several things.  First, they should be able to give reasonable recommendations as to what types of checks would be best for your business.  Secondly, a good Background Check Company will utilize licensed private investigators to oversee the background checks to make sure they are being done correctly and with integrity.

One of the common background checks is criminal background checks.  Criminal background checks look at relevant state and sometimes federal level criminal histories to help you ensure that your future employee is trustworthy and does not have any past inclinations that would put your company at risk for lawsuit, theft or violence.  Another pre employment screening that can be done is in the area of finances.  If the employee will be handling cash, bookkeeping, etc. it is important to make sure that person can manage their own finances first.  You would not put a crack addict in charge of the police drug unit because you know where all the evidence would go.  In that same theme you would not want to put someone in great financial disarray in a position to handle your money and then hope for the best.

For more information on, background checks, criminal background checks , background check experts, employee background checks or pre employment screening contact us at the background check company or call 1.770.426.0547