October 11, 2010 - When should you screen hourly employees?
Written by Stephen Mihalik, VP Enterprise Solutions
The decision to background check hourly employees is a question many companies ponder. We often question whether spending additional time and resources on an employee population with high turnover is necessary or prudent. When making hiring decisions hourly employees companies ask themselves a variety of questions:
- How soon do I need this person to start?
- How long will it take to get the results of a background check?
- How difficult is the process?
- Are the results FCRA compliant?
- What is the cost?
- Is it worth spending additional recruiting costs for an employee that will only stay on the payroll for a couple of months?
These are real questions that deserve real answers.
When was the last time you were at a store, a restaurant or called in to a customer service department and asked yourself, “Where did they get this person?” Is it possible others have said that about your company?
This too is a real question that deserves a real answer.
It is a long held adage that our employees are the face of our business—and thus our brand. If we are to observe the most successful companies from any list, we would find that the majority give credit to the people they hired for the success they experienced. An argument could be made that a business will survive a bad marketing campaign—but will most likely fail if it hires the wrong people.
Every company should protect their company brand and assets. Screening your hourly employees is a proven method for reducing risks, lowering costly turnover, and ultimately protecting your company brand and integrity.
This process begins in the recruiting stage. There are many services that can provide “Instant Background Checks” in fact, my personal email box gets numerous SPAM emails from such companies every week. I have even personally tried these services without any successful results. Although there may be resources that do provide accurate information, the question then becomes, “Where did the information come from?” In almost every case the background check was from a database and NOT from the direct source such as a court house or state repository. Now to complicate the matter, what do you do with the information you receive and is the data Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) compliant?
When considering background screening your hourly employees, you should consider the following.
- Are hourly employees the "face" of the company?
- How can our employees affect the company brand?
- Is it worth a few dollars (Typically under $8.00) to screen an hourly employee (Very small investment in caparison to the cost of recruiting and training)
- How can I receive an instant – FCRA Compliant result?
It seems as if there are more questions than answers and the process gets more complicated every time we turn the corner. No wonder why many companies are not screening their hourly – and often front line, customer-facing employees.
Understanding the need to be fiscally responsible and the need to hire quickly, Orange Tree has developed a simple yet effective way for companies to screen their candidates. Orange Tree’s First Look™ search requires only a few data fields to be competed to initiate the background check, this allows recruiters and hiring managers to easily request a background check without having to enter various applicant data that is not required. Within minutes, clients of the First LookTM service will know if an employee has a clear record on a National Criminal Record Search (NCRS); you will also have the comfort of knowing that if a concern does exist that a Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) compliant record research will be conducted.
Benefits:
- Minimal Data Entry
- Instant Clears
- FCRA Compliant Confirmations On All Concerns
- Staged Processing
- Peace of Mind
- Low Cost - High Impact
For more information, contact Orange Tree Employment Screening for a demonstration of First LookTM and a formal quote for our services.
The foregoing is not legal advice, either expressed or implied. We recommend you seek the advice of your corporate legal counsel for all aspects of employment law.