New background check policy
The Parthenon, the student newspaper of Marshall University, reports on the adoption of a background check policy by the University. Here’s the lead.
Employees who apply for jobs at Marshall University or Marshall Community and Technical College must now undergo background checks.
The Board of Governors passed the background check provision, Policy No. HR-14, during its Oct. 16 meeting, marking the first time the university has required background checks campuswide, the policy said.
The story gives us a look at many issues that have to be considered when an organization that hasn’t mandated background checks before makes them a requirement. Let’s consider a few.
The story quotes HR Director Jim Stephens as saying: “We hope, though, that departments have been performing these checks for a while because it’s a sound hiring practice,” It sure is.
In many organizations, some departments do background checks and others don’t. A policy like Marshall’s makes it clear that everyone should do them and makes a lot of excuses irrelevant.
Marshall’s policy applies to all faculty and staff hired on or after November 1. You’ve got to have some kind of effective date. You’ve got to be clear about who’s covered and who’s not covered by the policy.
Current faculty and staff won’t be checked when they apply for new positions. I would prefer to conduct background checks any time there’s a change in function that allows access to sensitive information or to money.
Student workers in general are exempt from the policy. But student workers applying for health and research positions […]
If one background check is good…
The Houston Chronicle recently ran an editorial about background checks for taxi drivers in that city. Here’s the gist.
By April, taxi drivers who wish to pick up or drop off passengers at Bush Intercontinental Airport will have to pass a background check by the Transportation Security Administration. The cabbies, 80 percent of whom came here from African nations such as Ethiopia, Nigeria and Somalia, protest that the background checks are redundant and discriminatory. They are right about the redundancy. Houston taxi drivers must undergo an FBI background check before they receive an operator’s license. If that screening is meaningful, there should be little need for another. Federal security officials say they will use databases to confirm drivers’ immigration status, but that has more to do with immigration policy than airport safety.
I’m with the Chronicle. If you do the job right, there should be no need to keep doing it over while you spend more money and time. You want your background check system to be both effective and cost-effective.
But there are times when you want to run more than one check on the same person. Here are a few of them.
When you’re hiring, run both a criminal background check and a pre-employment credit check. They help you spot different kinds of trouble and their value when used together with a conscientious reference check is greater than the sum of the parts.
Run those same checks when you promote someone to a new position. Think of it as a new […]
Background checks and more in hiring
Advance, a web site for health information professionals, asks: “What’s more expensive than the time and money invested in hiring and training a new employee?” Their answer: “Doing it again, when a new hire exits unexpectedly.”
Then they lay out several strategies, including background checks, for doing a better job of hiring. The article is aimed at people who hire for positions called “medical coders.” If that’s not you, skip the article and read what follows. Here are a few highlights, along with my comments.
“Know exactly what you need.” Far too few companies do this. I’m not taking about the job title or “education requirements.” Think about what the person will actually do and who they will work with. Then draw up a profile of an ideal candidate. Then you can put in the educational or experience requirements that relate directly to the job.
“Weigh references – but not heavily.” I love the phrasing of this recommendation because it should remind you that it’s getting tougher and tougher to get anything except verification of dates of employment out of previous employers.
“Test your applicant’s knowledge.” Don’t just go by the resume or application. Test the applicant’s assertion that he or she can perform a specific task or is familiar with a particular process or software. Use questions about the process or procedures. Use actual performance tests.
“Perform a background check.” The author recommends both a criminal background check and a pre-employment credit check. So do I.
Remember that the people you hire are […]
See the government. See the government move slowly.
Sometimes I wonder what my government does with all the money I send them. I’ve been following the background check process of the Federal Government, hoping that I’d learn something about how to use background checks more effectively. Boy was I looking in the wrong place.
There’s an article in Government Executive about how “by Oct, 27, 2007, federal agencies were supposed to complete background checks for employees with 15 years’ or less experience and begin issuing new identity cards.” Want to guess how many Federal agencies met the deadline?
The answer is none. Zero. Not one. And this was a deadline that was set in 2004!
Now, in business, if nobody could make our deadline, we would assume that the problem was the deadline, not the people. But this is the government we’re talking about.
Not only has the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the ones responsible for the deadline, not acknowledged that the deadline might be a problem, they haven’t changed anything about the background check program. Not only do the background checks need to be completed but “new identity cards must replace the standard employee flash-card badges by Oct. 27, 2008.”
So, if you are a Federal agency, you’re supposed to get the background checks done and then get the new cards done. No changes to the deadlines. But of course, if the DHS isn’t enforcing the deadline and nobody’s making it, you could say it’s not really a deadline.
One of the great things about working in business or a not-for-profit […]
Background checks on chaperones?
I confess that when I read the headline, “Livonia schools runs criminal checks on chaperones,” I found myself thinking that some people might be going overboard. But the article reminded me of an important thing about background checks and how you use them. You use them as part of a process of judgment.
You decide whose background should get checked. The Livonia schools thought it was a good idea to check on chaperones because they’re in positions of trust with young people they could easily take advantage of.
Who should you be checking out? Who will be in a trusted position they could abuse? Who has access to money, people, or information and could use that access to do something bad?
You decide what kind of check is called for. A criminal background check and a close look at the sex offender registry was what Livonia decided.
For most hires and people with access to money or sensitive data, I suggest both a national criminal background check and a pre-employment credit check. When you make decisions on this, think about what people actually do and what they actually have access to.
You decide what information is important. If you’re hiring an accounting clerk you will certainly want to look at credit history carefully. If you’re hiring a truck driver, the driving record is important. Everybody should have their background checked for criminal activity.
And, this is important, you decide what to do with what you find. If you hit something that might cause you […]
How times have changed
The Arizona Daily Star ran a story with the headline “Tucson police hope PDA’s make background checks quicker.” Here’s the lead.
Tucson police have turned to palm-sized technology to help its officers and those at other law enforcement agencies conduct background checks and keep track of crime trends. A grant from the Department of Homeland Security has enabled the department to acquire more than 200 PDAs, which they have decided to distribute among their own officers as well as about 20 other agencies across Southern Arizona.
Frankly, it got me thinking about the old days. We never used to use criminal background checks or pre-employment credit checks in hiring. Part of the reason was that we didn’t have to.
Even a couple of decades ago, people didn’t move as often as they do now. So you were hiring people from the area and it was easy to check them out by talking to people who knew them.
Employers would talk to you back then. I can remember a time when people didn’t sue you for giving out damaging, but true information. But in the last couple of decades, employers have gotten suit-shy. They’ll verify dates of employment, but not much else.
In today’s world we need a way to check on people when there isn’t anybody who knows the applicant that we can chat with. The old ways won’t work anymore. But technology has come to the rescue.
Another reason we didn’t check for a criminal record on an applicant and why we didn’t check […]