Developing your Company's Policy
on Background Checks
If your company uses background checks as part of
their hiring process, then it’s imperative that
your company has a policy on how the background
checks are performed. You want to make sure
that they are done in compliance with the law so
that the potential employee and your company are
protected from lawsuits including negligent hiring
lawsuits. Your role as the employer when it
comes to the background check process is going to
be different for every company and it will vary
on the nature and the extent the pre-employment
screening program goes into for the particular job
you are hiring for.
What this means is that some positions will require
a deeper background check than others. Some
companies will outsource their background checks
and most will include criminal and credit history,
reference checks and drug testing based on the position.
Some background check companies provide recommendations
that fall under ‘competitive’ for an employee that
is a good potential fit or ‘not competitive’ for
someone who does not fit into the position well.
Regardless of whether you outsource your background
checks or not, you are still liable for your company
policy on how the background check process is to
be conducted. You need to make sure that the
policy is compliant with all of the state, federal,
and local employment laws that surround employment
issues. You need to make sure that you do
everything right in order to avoid a negligent hiring
lawsuit or other legal proceeding when the potential
employee is bypassed for the job.
At the minimum, your
company policy on background checks should include
but not be limited to the following items:
·
A section that explains
how to understand and manage all of the federal
and state compliance issues that are related to
background checks which include fair credit reporting
issues, discrimination issues, privacy issues and
more.
·
The name of the background
check vendor your company is going to use and an
‘end user’ agreement between your company and the
background check vendor.
·
A list of jobs in
your organization that will require a background
check and what type of background check each one
needs.
·
Documentation stating
why a particular job would need a criminal or credit
history investigation and policies on when written
job descriptions need to be reviewed and updated.
·
A statement of when
background checks are required – such as before
being hired or periodically – depending on each
job position and whether or not current employees
who did not have a pre-employment background check
needs one.
·
An outline of the
standards for which background checks will be evaluated
and how the information and what type of the information
will be disclosed.
·
A copy of the most
current employment application that states that
background checks will be administered and the consequences
of lying on the application, including termination
of employment. Copies of all other pre-employment
paperwork should be included and they should carry
the same clause about lying and background checks.
·
FCRA compliant authorization
and disclosure forms, document destruction policies,
and ‘adverse action’ letters.
·
Training material
for recruiters and HR staff that shows them how
the policy is to be used
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