When thinking about conducting pre-employment employee background checks, one seldom considers how this step can prevent internal theft. I had an employee theft issue a few years ago with a group of associates who were stealing from our company. The losses we encountered could have been prevented if we had more rigorous pre-employment screening procedures in place.
The scam worked like this: one associate would make purchases when his friend was working the customer service desk. This was all within policy – what wasn’t within policy was the additional merchandise that was not rung up – thousands of dollars of merchandise. He confessed that the stolen merchandise was all being shipped back to his native country when we questioned him.
We could not locate the other three associates involved when we finished questioning the first employee. They simply walked out of the store while we questioned the first associate. When we took the case to our local law enforcement, it became clear that the employees we had hired used fake IDs with stolen information. We have yet to find our former employees.
Because we are not background check experts, we did not catch the discrepancy when these individuals applied for jobs. If we had possessed the foresight to take this simple and inexpensive step in the hiring process, we would have saved thousands of dollars in stolen merchandise and valuable resources in tracking down the thieves. Background check experts would have done what we could not.
Employee background checks are not about prior convictions only. It is the way that pre-employment screening is equipped to do an adequate job and confirm whether or not the person you are considering hiring is EXACTLY who he or she presents himself to be.
For more information on background check experts, background checks, criminal background checks, employee background checks or pre employment screening contact us at background check company or call 1.770.426.0547
