Employment
Screening Checks
These
employment screening checks will vary in their depth and
some may overlap. This
is merely a list of the kinds of checks you might run:
Social Security Number Trace
– Sometimes people will change names and often do when they get
married. Any trace that is only based on the person’s current name
might not include problems from before the name change.
Criminal record check
– Criminal records checks should be run on all names and in all
counties that are turned up in the Social Security Number Trace.
Request information available on both felony and
misdemeanor convictions.
Driver’s license check
– An employer that sends an unlicensed driver out on assignment,
may find themselves liable if that employee has an accident.
This is especially true in cases where the employee is
transporting a client. Merely
looking at the license to ensure that there are valid dates is not
enough. A driver may
have a revoked or suspended license in which cases, they are not
legally able to drive.
Employment verification
– All employment applications require information related to
past work history. However, it has been reported that about 40% of all work
applications and resumes contain falsified information.
Since you need to be able to trust your employees, it is
recommended that you do comprehensive employment verification
before hiring anyone.
Employment verifications come in
all sizes. The basic
verifications generally include dates of employment, salary
history, job title, and whether the employee would be available
for rehire. More
extensive verifications can also include one on one interviews
with former associates and supervisors.
Drug testing
– Keep in mind that drug testing isn’t just about finding out
whether your prospective employee is partaking in recreational
illegal drugs. Employees
who are on extensive pain killers or mood-altering medications can
become a liability as well. A
full panel drug screen is recommended to make sure that your
employee is not going to fall asleep at the wheel or on the job
because of medications that you should have known about.
Credit history reports
– Checking on your employees financial situation may sound like
a violation of their privacy to begin with.
Yet this problem is solved if you have your prospective
employees sign a release before you hire them.
For many jobs, there is no reason
to go this far. But
remember that in the home care business, you are sending your
employees into the homes of your customers, many of whom can be
too trusting, easily duped, often forgetful, and sometimes easily
confused. As the
business owner, you are in fact standing behind the honesty of
your employees.
When a person is faced with
severe economic pressure at home, desperation can be the trigger
that causes even a normally honest person to violate a trust.
More than once, a person facing financial ruin has violated
that trust in the home of a client, especially when that client is
a bit confused. As
the owner of the business, you can certainly choose to fire an
employee caught stealing, but the financial liability can still
rest with you because the employee was in the home as your agent.
Civil history reports
– Civil actions are those that are brought against an individual
for wrongs that may or may not include criminal action.
Because the standard of proof is not as high in civil court
(a preponderance of the evidence) vs. criminal court (beyond a
reasonable doubt), some criminal cases may not be strong enough to
survive criminal court, yet are still won in civil court.
Other cases such as slander or
libel are not criminal offenses, yet these can be serious.
If your employee slanders the competition, you as the
employer can also be sued. As
important as it is to see if your employee was a defendant in a
case, it is just as important to see what or if they have ever
been a plaintiff and what that was about.
Note:
It is not necessarily a negative if your prospect
employee has ever been in court.
It is everyone’s right to go to court when they have
been mistreated and sometimes, there are just some sincere
disagreements.
The reason that you want to look
at the plaintiff side is that you want to determine whether there
were one or two isolated instances or if suing people is a pattern
of behavior. If you
found that they’ve sued their last four employers for the same
thing, you can pretty much figure what your chances are as the
fifth employer.
Medicare/Medicaid fraud report
– This report is especially important if your company
participates in either of these programs.
Professional license
verification – You
might be surprised how many people claim to be licensed that are
not or have had license suspensions.
Professional reference report
– Perhaps not as important as others, this report has to do with
the way that professionals in the industry regard the applicant.
Sexual Offender’s Registry
report – This report is
obvious
Worker’s Compensation
history report – Does
the applicant have a history of accidents on the job? Has there ever been a case where the applicant was caught
attempting to fake a work-related accident?
This one might just be a little bit bigger than you.
Could the worker be gaining employment for the purposes of
creating an accident and then going after your client?
In most cases where you are
protected by workman’s compensation insurance, this wouldn’t
be a big problem for your client.
But neither would it stop them from filing a lawsuit
against them.
