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Archive for the 'Homeland Security' Category
First Published on COSE Mindspring - 2/08/08
Authored by Ted L. Moss, CPP
In nearly every U.S. state, courts have ruled that employers owe a special duty to their employees and clients to protect them from the harmful or criminal acts of other employees. Financial awards and public fallout from instances where a company’s employee has caused harm to another employee can be excessively large and often punitive. At the heart of many of these rulings is one overriding element of employer responsibility: responsible hiring practices. Negligent hiring litigation is a growing problem and statistics show that employers lose 79% of all negligent hiring suits.
Responsible hiring means that an employer has made active and reasonable attempts to discover any historical indication, whether criminal, characteristic, or propensity, that would provide ample warning in regards to the safety of his or her employment. To establish negligent hiring, the harmed person generally must show that 1. The employer did not exercise reasonable care in hiring the person, 2. The employee had dangerous tendencies which should have been apparent if the employer had exercised reasonable care, and 3. The employer placed the employee in a position where others could be injured.
Many companies have a legal obligation to perform background checks on employees if they will be placed in certain situations. Some of these might include:
Working in close contact with children
Supervision of children or the elderly
Access to personal residences or personal property
Responsibility of providing safety to others
Driving and transportation
Access to guns or weapons
In these cases, driving records checks, criminal and sex offender checks, and verification of identity are the norm. But even those businesses that are not legally required to perform background checks on employees can be found liable for negligent hiring, because from the perspective of the courts and the government, every single employer has a responsibility to perform due diligence to determine at least the employee’s fitness to perform the job safely.
What level of screening is enough to mitigate risk?
Reviewing the employment application and verification of references is not always enough. The level of screening should be proportionate to the level of inherent risk that the position entails. Some basic factors to consider should be:
Conduct a thorough background check for criminal records/sexual offender lists/identity verification
Review driving record history and verify educational history/degrees/employment records
Conduct an in-depth interview, with investigation into any employment lapses
Verify all references
Psychological testing
Consider a professional review of the resume for potential fraud
Drug Testing
If this list seems excessive, consider the fact that the fee for a professional screening firm to conduct the above testing would usually not exceed the cost of two days salary for most entry level employees. Most of the above can be conducted in-house, (click here for a listing of free public records) if the company has access to a specially trained HR professional dedicated to administering the hiring process. The law is very specific to what public and criminal records can be used when making the hiring decision, so make sure that your new hire administrator is well trained in the various federal, state, and local laws pertaining to hiring. If hiring a professional pre-employment screening firm, make sure they are adequately certified and knowledgeable regarding CRA (consumer reporting agency) regulations.
Cleveland, Ohio (April 10, 2008) Ted L. Moss, CPP, has been named a contributing editor to COSE Mindspring.com. Visit COSE Mindspring at http://www.cosemindspring.com/
COSE MindSpring, is COSE’s peer-based virtual information portal, where members meet, exchange ideas, share experiences and grow. Powered by relevant and timely articles, discussion boards, guest editors and practical topics, small business owners connect to the necessary tools to start, maintain and grow a small business in Northeast Ohio. COSE MindSpring. A meeting of the minds.
Excerpts of an Article in Crains Cleveland Business – March 2008
Background checks are becoming a more standard practice among companies of all sizes considering new employees, according to executives in the screening business.
Weeding out the bad seed
Although employment screening services used to be conducted mostly for larger companies, smaller firms are getting into the game. Small businesses, screening firms said, are becoming more aware of the dangers of not checking up on
potential employees, especially given the harm one bad seed could do to a modest organization. Indeed, digging into someone’s past can save a company the time, money and embarrassment of hiring a bad employee or one who is being less than honest.
Human Resources Outsourcing (HRO) is the fastest growing subset of the wide-ranging Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) sector. Most companies consider the use of an HRO provider as a way to cut costs. The general thought is that any business function that does not focus on improving the bottom line, can be outsourced. Businesses today want their expenses to directly impact their core business processes.
For CrimCheck’s Ted Moss, it was the leap onto the Internet that revolutionized his business plan, and he hasn’t looked back since. “Almost all of our growth has been from Internet growth,” says Moss, the company’s founder and president. “We’ve really evolved and changed dramatically from where we started.”
In 1991, Moss began CrimCheck to provide investigative and security consulting services to businesses. With the help of his brother, a basement phone line and $100, Moss got out his name by making cold calls to area companies, slowly but surely building a sizable company.
Ted Moss CPP discusses background checks and Crimcheck.com
Prevent Shrink, Increase Profits: the Impact of Responsible Hiring on Retail Shrink
November 20, 2007With retail shrink sucking a whopping $31 billion dollars or more out of retail profits annually, finding effective ways to combat shrink in the retail environment is one of the best ways to increase a business’s profitability. And although shoplifting is the most recognizable form of retail shrink, it is not the most costly—not by far; individuals within an organization account for much higher levels of retail shrink.Three out of the top four sources of retail shrink come from either employees or vendors. Administrative error alone accounts for up to 15% of shrink; vendor fraud, most often committed by vendors invited into the store for purposes of restocking, constitutes the smallest percentage of shrink (within the top four), but still ranks high on the list.
Attached to this article you will find a PDF document that makes recommendations of security measures at various threat levels. It was put out by the Department of Homeland Security and is quite comprehensive. There are some really great recommendations in this document for small and large organizations alike.