Employee Screenings Can Close Job Doors

The topic of business security might first bring to mind locks and vaults, sprinklers and alarm systems, closed-circuit video and solid insurance policies. But another element of maintaining a secure workplace is ensuring that the employees who work there are on the up-and-up.

Just as a business owner can be liable for a defective wiring system that causes a fire, he or she could be found at fault if an employee hurts a customer or co-worker.

That’s why a background check is vital before making a hire, said Mike Cool, vice president for Acxiom Information Security Services, the background screening division of the Little Rock data services giant.

“Really, criminal records are the most important component of a background check, because the driving force is that employers are responsible for their sphere,” Cool said. “And if they’re going to put you in proximity to work next to me, if they don’t exercise a certain amount of diligence and you act out in a way that could have been foreseeable from a criminal record, the company will have a tremendous liability on their hands.”

Background searches can reveal any number of details about someone, including criminal convictions, credit history, professional licensure and education. But the big one in terms of reducing an employer’s potential liability is to look out for any rap sheet that includes violent incidents.

Cool has been in the background business for 15 years, and said, the expectations for employers to screen applicants for past violent or criminal behavior has “risen to a point of common knowledge.”

Like many other businesses, the background screening industry has been changed dramatically by advances in computer technology. Faster, easier access to court records is one reason employers are increasingly liable for the due diligence on their employees’ pasts, Cool said.

Enormous government and corporate databases – Acxiom, for instance, has one with 770 million records – mean there is more information available than ever before about potential employees.

 

Feet on the Ground

While these huge databases are undoubtedly helpful for background searches, nothing beats an old-fashioned visit to the courthouse, said Curtis Raymond, co-owner of CourtHouse Concepts and National Crime Search Inc., both of Fayetteville.

The main reason for going to the courthouse in person is because there can be a lag between when an incident such as a DUI occurs and when the paperwork shows up in a courthouse’s electronic records, Raymond said. It might not show up in an electronic form at all if a clerk fails to enter it into the computer system, Cool said.

Courthouse visits are also standard practice for Acutraq Information Services, a screening company based in Combs.

“We actually send people into the courthouses to check the records by county,” said Acutraq owner Jeannie Baker. “That’s the most accurate way.”

About 80 percent of Acutraq’s customers are landlords who need screenings for potential tenants. Baker founded the company in 1996 as Tenant Searchers. She added employee screenings and changed the name about six years ago.

Most of Acutraq’s business customers are in Arkansas, but the employees those businesses might hire could have lived – or committed a crime – anywhere. That’s when the national databases come in handy.

“Let’s say someone has lived in Northwest Arkansas all their life,” Baker said. “However, they went to Florida on vacation and broke into a business and stole something and now they have a criminal record in Florida.”

While databases can point background screeners in the right direction, “there is no database that is anywhere near comprehensive enough to use as a standalone product,” Cool said.

That’s why Acxiom and other background search companies often contract out to similar outfits to pound the pavement doing courthouse searches around the country.

“In our industry, as we make connections here and there, we’ll use people there and they’ll use us here,” Raymond said. “Right now, we’re probably doing pretty consistently an average of about 600 or 700 a day just in Arkansas searches alone.”

Acxiom works with thousands of contractors and audits them regularly to ensure they’re producing timely, accurate results, Cool said. The company conducts about a million searches a year.

Background screening companies often keep to themselves the particulars of how they conduct searches and which third-party databases they access.

“We look upon that as our recipe for Coke,” Cool said of Acxiom’s search methods.

The cost for Acxiom’s background screenings “depends on volume,” Cool said.

Raymond and his partners started National Crime Search Inc. to cater to temporary staffing agencies and other high-turnover employers that need instant nationwide criminal background searches.

Another determining factor on the price of a background check is how many courts and databases have to be searched. Raymond said the price of a search could run anywhere from about $10 to $200, but the vast majority fall within the lower end of that range.

 

Credit Check

While a history of violent or otherwise criminal behavior might nix an applicant’s chance of landing a job, a history of poor financial choices can sometimes factor in.

Credit checks are a good idea for any employee who would be responsible for handling cash or customer credit card information, he said.

Acxiom has seen a declining demand for credit history searches in recent years.

“Predominately, there’s always been an argument about whether credit accurately reflects a person’s character,” Cool said.

There are other reasons, too.

“Many people that had good credit two years ago don’t have it today, for obvious reasons,” he said. “The economic downturn has tainted many people.”

Married people might have bad credit through no fault of their own.

The credit reports that employers receive do not contain an applicant’s credit score, account numbers or date of birth, according to a report written for Employment Screening Resources of San Francisco and LexisNexis Screening Solutions of Alpharetta, Ga.

Employers and search companies are bound by rules included in the Fair Credit Reporting Act, which are enforced by the Federal Trade Commission.

The FCRA gives background screeners a set of guidelines, allowing them to access relevant information without violating a person’s privacy, Baker said.

 

Mistaken Identity

Identity theft is a growing crime that has complicated the background screening process, Baker said.

Cool said Acxiom has seen a rise in a particular type of identity theft.

“There seems to be a preponderance of twins stealing each others’ identities,” he said. “It happens a lot: The bad twin brother steals the good twin brother’s identity and gets arrested under his name.

“They look alike, their Socials are only off sometimes by one digit, their date of birth is the same, and many times their names are very similar and plus they know everything about the other one, so they can pass off that identity,” he said.

Sometimes, two people with the same name get mixed up, as was the case with James Stewart of Fort Scott, Kan. According to a recent story by KOAM-TV, Channel 7, of Pittsburgh, Kan., Stewart was turned down for a job because of a drug conviction turned up in an Acxiom background search.

He had never been arrested, however. The search result mixed up his name and background with another James Stewart. But he contacted Acxiom and eventually got everything cleared up. He was even offered the job he’d been turned down for, according to the KOAM story.

Such transpositions are “very rare,” Cool said, but they can happen on occasion. Another trend in background screening is recurring checks on current employees.

“If we checked this person at the hire and he’s worked here 10 years and he’s been arrested 17 times during the time of his employ, and then he acts out in that way, is that diligent? Many companies are finding, no,” he said.

“Recurring screening is a relatively new effort that we see for many of our customers. And that is, having some type of schema to say we’re going to be diligent and check people’s criminal records at some point, at some frequency during their employment. It’s not just good enough to do it at the hire.”

Raymond has seen an increase in such diligence.

“We have one customer that every year they run a motor vehicle [check] on all their employees who drive any type of company car,” Raymond said.