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
