Tenant screening

The following is a look at the three primary reasons property managers should always be thorough in their tenant screening processes.

1. To ensure you get your rent checks every month.

As a landlord, your top concern is that you receive that rent check every month, on time and paid in full. A tenant background check that includes running a credit report will turn up red flags such as a history of late payments or debts that have gone into collections. Similarly, by verifying employment history as part of the tenant screening process, you can assess whether the applicant has the means to pay rent reliably.

2. To prevent property damage.

Allowing someone to take possession of your rental property is a tremendous act of trust; you are essential placing your financial asset into a stranger’s hands. By examining a prospective tenant’s rental history and criminal background as part of your tenant screening, you can easily spot warning signs that he or she may put your property at risk. For example, a thorough criminal records search will reveal whether the person has a history of crimes against property or other violent crimes.

3. To limit legal liability.

If a tenant commits a crime against another tenant, you could be held legally liable – especially if you failed to perform a tenant background check that would have turned up the person’s criminal tendencies. The more thorough your tenant screening practices are, the better your chances of sidestepping legal responsibility in case a tenant turns violent.

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In particular, the segment examined the increasingly common practice of asking job candidates to turn over their Facebook login information during the pre-hire screening process. The Department of Justice has been asked to investigate whether such practices violate federal law.

The Problem with Social Media Screening

The danger in using Facebook and other social media networks for pre-employment screening is that hiring managers run the risk of stumbling across answers to questions that are legally off-limits, such as sexuality or marital status. Seeking or using such information during the hiring process is a violation of anti-discrimination laws.

Human resources expert Steven Kane warned that “unless an employer can show that somehow such information gleaned is really job-related to the role that they’re seeking this person to play, they are really playing with fire” in using social media for pre-hire screening.

Currently Legal, But Not for Long

While asking for social media login information for pre-employment screening purposes is currently legal nationwide, it may not be for long. The Maryland legislature has approved a bill that would ban employers from requesting social media logins, and other states are expected to follow suit. In some cases, the American Civil Liberties Union has also thrown its support behind the proposed laws.

Regardless of how the legislation pans out, employers need to be careful with their pre-hire screening processes, Kane cautioned.

“At the end of the day, the employer needs to be able to justify its overall hiring practices, and if it gets a reputation for doing things that either applicants or its employees find distasteful, it will suffer in the marketplace.”

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The nation’s top dating websites – eHarmony, Match.com and Spark Networks – have collaborated on an agreement with the California Attorney General to protect their clientele from sexual predators by performing background checks on their members. Though not extensive, the background checks do involve consulting national sex offender registries and barring convicted sex offenders from membership. While such a one-dimensional background check is not foolproof, it will make online dating sites less accessible for known sex offenders.

On the heels of this announcement, the Illinois legislature is considering a law (known as the Internet Dating Safety Act) that would require online dating services to clearly disclose whether they perform criminal background checks on their members. If passed, the law would require sites claiming that they perform background checks to use government databases – including criminal court records as well as sex offender registries – and reveal if a person with a criminal record is allowed to sign up. Sites that don’t follow these requirements, or lie about conducting background checks, could be fined up to $50,000 per violation.

With even the most basic type of background check, dating websites can screen out many potentially dangerous members and make online dating safer for the people who use them.

[ Photo by: Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com, on Flickr, via CC License ]

Why Many Small Businesses Don’t Do Pre-Employment Background Screening

“Won’t that cost me an arm and a leg?” Many SMB leaders see cost as a major inhibitor of professional pre-employment background screening. In truth, however, the idea that expert employment background checks are too pricey for smaller businesses is a misperception. If you’re willing to outsource your pre-employment background screening, it can actually be quite affordable – usually no more than $50 per applicant.

“We don’t have the internal expertise to do background checks.” Lack of knowledge surrounding background screening is another reason SMBs often fail to run employment background checks. Certainly, there is plenty to learn about screening. It could very well take an in-house employee months to research how to best run background checks. Yet again, the outsourcing option neatly solves this problem. If you’d rather not pay one of your workers to figure out how to screen applicants, you can simply hire a professional pre-employment background screening firm to do it quickly and professionally for you. Many of the experts at such screening companies have spent their entire careers learning the best ways to research candidates’ backgrounds.

“What’s the big deal? We’ve never had a problem with hiring before.” Finally, lack of concern is a major factor. Some SMB leaders see background checks as something that only certain fields must carry out. And indeed, until the last decade or so, health care, law enforcement and education professionals were by and large the only workers subjected to employment background checks. Today, however, private companies have plenty of reasons to consistently carry out pre-employment background screening, as explained below.

Why SMBs should Conduct Employment Background Checks

To avoid hiring dangerous individuals. Labor experts tell us 10 percent of job applicants have some kind of criminal history. If you don’t perform pre-employment background screening, you could hire a violent person. Here’s a scary example of what might result: Last January, a new hire at the Flying Biscuit Café in Charlotte, N.C., stabbed his manager to death, robbed the store and fled. The café owner admitted that no background screening was carried out for this violent individual.

To root out lies in candidates’ applications. Labor authorities estimate that at least 40 percent of resumes include dishonest omissions, if not downright lies. Employment background checks help bring such fabrications into the spotlight.

To avoid legal snafus. Getting back to the Flying Biscuit Café, the owner could be facing hefty negligent hiring fines from the Alcohol Law Enforcement division. The law says employees must have three felony-free years in order to serve alcohol. The new worker had just been released from prison last November, having served two years for robbery and breaking and entering. In legal terms, the owner’s failure to thoroughly examine applicants’ histories would be considered a case of negligent hiring. Failing to perform background checks could result in large, unnecessary legal fees.

To cut costs. Overall, pre-employment background screening helps companies find better job candidates. In turn, this leads to less time spent looking for replacements, fewer employee-generated losses such as theft and embezzlement, less negative PR, fewer lost customers, and less money wasted in litigation regarding negligent hiring.

To speed the hiring process. Most background screening companies stick to a 48-hour turn-around time. If you outsource your employee background checks, you will receive a complete background report in a day or two, allowing for speedy hiring.

As you can see, there are many reasons why an SMB owner should arrange exhaustive employment background checks. Instead of trying to do employee screening internally, the wise SMB owner outsources this specialized work to a third-party pre-employment background screening company.

While local crime-watch groups exist to make neighborhoods safer, volunteer George Zimmerman’s harassment and subsequent shooting of the teenager demonstrate that such organizations may also be attractive to overzealous, vigilante types who may abuse their position.

So how can neighborhood watch groups prevent similar situations in the future? By conducting criminal background checks on all volunteers, for starters, says Gabriel “Jack” Chin, a professor of law at the University of California at Davis School of Law. He recommended neighborhood watch groups take the following measures:

Criminal background checks. Chin insists that criminal background checks should be required for all neighborhood watch members – or at least those who go out on patrol. A criminal background check on Zimmerman, for example might have turned up his violent past and flagged him as an unsuitable member for the local neighborhood watch. In 2005, he was charged with resisting arrest with violence and battery of a law enforcement officer; the same year, his ex-fiancé was also granted a domestic violence restraining order against him.

Anti-weapon policies. In addition to criminal background checks, another safety measure Chin recommended was that crime-watch groups create written policies prohibiting members from carrying weapons while carrying out group activities, regardless of whether they have a license to carry.

Extra training. Finally, he suggested that neighborhood watch organizations consider providing extra training to make sure members understand the laws around using deadly force.

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For years, credit reports, drug tests and professional background checks have been the main aspects of pre-hire scrutiny that employers had to worry about. But now it appears social media investigation could also be subject to privacy laws.

The truth is that the majority of today’s companies will analyze an applicant’s character by scouring their social media profiles. According to a 2011 survey of 300 hiring professionals conducted by the social media site Reppler, 91 percent of respondents have utilized social networking sites to vet potential employees. In other words, reviewing candidates’ Facebook and other social media profiles is nothing new. Job placement expert John Challenger vouches for the fact that private companies are more frequently scouting out potential hires by surfing Facebook and other social networking profiles.

There is a spectrum of positions on the topic of digital privacy in background checks. On the pro social media pre-employment background check side, many job hopefuls advocate using social media to attract employers and land new positions. A positive digital persona can earn the confidence of hiring professionals. Some websites, such as LinkedIn, are particularly geared toward creating and growing an employable online profile.

Yet many question whether some companies have crossed a line into privacy violation in pre-employment background screening. Some firms are going so far as to ask for applicants’ logins and passwords!

Previously, public sector applicants were most likely to be asked for Facebook access as part of pre-employment background screening. Law enforcement personnel were especially likely to face social media scrutiny in background checks. For instance, as reported at NPR, one Maryland officer was asked for his Facebook login data when reapplying for a corrections position. His employers stated that their purpose in checking his Facebook profile was to figure out whether he had any gang connections. This isn’t too surprising – those who work in law enforcement, education and healthcare have long faced more intense pre-employment background screening than applicants in other fields. However, more and more private companies are now asking for Facebook and other social media login information.

This type of pre-employment background check is currently legal in all 50 states, but it doesn’t seem like this will be the case for very long. Very soon, Maryland employers could be banned from asking for social media login information, thanks to a new bill that enjoyed unanimous approval in the Maryland Senate and broad support in the House. The governor’s signature is all that’s required to put this new restriction on pre-employment background screening into law.

State legislatures in California, Michigan and Illinois are working on similar bans. The proposed Illinois legislation would make “asking for login information for a social networking site as unlawful as asking a woman whether she plans to have children,” according to Colleen Connell, executive director of the Illinois ACLU, which is rallying for the bill.

These developments have many attorneys wondering whether FCRA standards will be applied to social media background checks. Over the next few years, courts will establish bolder boundaries around what is and is not legal in digital pre-employment background screening. Questions of privacy and free speech rights will be answered more decisively as more and more lawsuits are brought against those who insist on using social media login information in background checks. But to protect your firm’s reputation now, here’s what to do:

• Abide by all FCRA guidelines. If you conduct pre-employment background screening in house, be sure to have your attorney review the legality of your typical procedure for conducting background checks.
• Be wary of smart phone apps for background checks. This is another gray area, legally speaking. Monitor which apps have been flagged by the FTC as potential violators of FCRA guidelines.
• Understand that you may be forced to disclose your hiring justifications. If you are sued, you will have to explain why you rejected the candidate. So don’t make decisions based on race, sexual orientation, parental status, age or any other characteristic not directly related to the position at hand.
• Ask those who carry out background checks to report only job-related information. If one of your staffers is assigned the task of researching applicants’ social media profiles, instruct them to report only information that is relevant to the job. This will offer some legal protection for your hiring manager.

Balancing position requirements with legal liability is the dance employers must do when conducting pre-employment background screening.

Below, we list some of the developments pre-hire screening experts predict for 2012:

1. Increased scrutiny of criminal background checks by the EEOC.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) was formed under a mandate in the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The EEOC’s main role is to enforce workplace anti-discrimination laws. Employers may not discriminate based on sex, gender, religion, race and age. Recently, however, the EEOC has been more critical of companies that reject applicants based on criminal background checks. Last July, the EEOC held a public meeting on whether considering conviction and arrest records in pre-employment background checks constitutes discrimination against ex-offenders.

There is some public support for this movement, as well. The “Ban the Box” campaign urges the prohibition of criminal history questions on job applications for public positions. Overall, it appears this year will see more challenges to pre-hire screening procedures that involve criminal background checks.

2. More state laws limiting credit reporting in pre-employment background checks.

A 2010 survey from the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM) found that 13 percent of businesses check the credit score for all job candidates, while 47 percent order credit reporting for some applicants as part of their pre-employment background check process. Yet this practice is also facing increased scrutiny from the EEOC – and some states already ban it.

Oregon, for instance, passed a law in February 2010 forbidding employers from making employment-related decisions based on credit histories. (Some positions are exempt from this rule, including bankers and law enforcement professionals.)  California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland and Washington state also have laws on the books restricting the use of credit histories in pre-employment background checks.  Plus, at least 31 American cities have similar legislation. Don’t be surprised if more states and cities follow suit in 2012.

3. More employers incorporate social media analysis in pre-hire screening.

More and more businesses are checking applicants’ social media profiles as a part of their pre-employment background check methodology. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and other social networking sites are like a double-edged sword for employers. On the one hand, such sites often include so much information that companies could be accused of negligent hiring if they don’t at least check out publicly available profiles. On the other hand, social media screening is becoming more and more controversial.

Some states are in the process of limiting this type of pre-employment background check. Maryland, for instance, requires only the governor’s signature to sign into law legislation banning employers from asking applicants for social media login information. (This is the most extreme variety of pre-hire social media screening; if profiles are not available publicly, some private companies are asking candidates to provide login information.) In 2012, expect more states to restrict the use of social media in pre-hire screening.

4. Pre-employment background checks become more automated.

In the early days of pre-hire screening, private detectives investigated lives in person. Scotsman Allan Pinkerton may have been the first to conduct pre-hire screening investigations through his company, the Pinkerton National Detective Agency. Pinkerton established many of the detective techniques we’re familiar with today, including shadowing persons of interest.

My, how things have changed since then! Today, it’s rare for pre-hire screening agencies to conduct investigations in person. Instead, they’re more and more frequently turning to automated process to conduct their investigations. This tendency has certainly boosted the efficiency of running pre-employment background checks, but it has also resulted in more inconsistencies and inaccuracies in pre-hire screening reports.

If you’re looking for a knowledgeable, law-abiding, effective way to conduct your pre-employment background checks, it’s best to avoid “quick fix” solutions via smart phone or automated websites online. Instead, consider partnering with a pre-hire screening expert who has a proven history of providing top-notch pre-employment background checks.

[Photo by: danielmoyle, via CC License ]

One mistake many companies make is attempting to cut costs by directly contacting a candidate’s previous employer for information, rather than hiring an accredited employee background check company. Although this method can be easier and cheaper, the information retrieved this way can be viewed as irrelevant to the hiring decision, opening your firm up to a potential lawsuit. For example, a previous employer who gives information about the reason for terminating an employee can expose your company as well as his or hers to the risk of being accused of libel, slander or defamation

Another reason to use an employment screening firm instead of contacting former employers on your own is because employee background check companies follow the guidelines of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). By adhering to these guidelines, these professionals protect your company from unsubstantiated. If a disgruntled individual decides to accuse your company of wrongdoing, your reputable employment screening firm can simply prove its compliance with the FCRA.

Hiring a reliable third party to conduct employee background checks not only ensures the job will be done expertly – it also offers you a measure of legal protection.

While the majority of companies still use urinalysis for drug testing, hair has begun to replace urine as a more effective way to detect drug use. Here’s a look at how and why hair follicle drug testing works:

Accuracy. Using a small sample of hair, the laboratory tests the hair shaft for drug molecules. The reason this process is more accurate than urinalysis is that the evidence of drug use will stay in a person’s hair shaft for up to 90 days (versus just 72 hours with traditional urinalysis testing). Additionally, hair follicle drug testing virtually eliminates the possibility of sample contamination or tampering.

Non-intrusiveness. Another advantage of hair follicle drug testing is that it is relativity non-intrusive during the collection procedure. For a potential employee who has no reason to worry about passing a drug test, this required part of the pre-employment process won’t seem as such a hassle as other forms of drug testing.

Since all companies benefit from conducting more accurate drug screening, drug testing hair is a growing trend. This not only gives employers more confidence in their team members, but it also limits the risk of hiring someone who could endanger himself or others as a result of the careless decision to do drugs.

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This is especially the case when you request a more comprehensive background check that will expose you to other legal claims involving the court system. The following list highlights potential hazards associated with employment background checks, as well as tips on how to minimize legal claims against your business:

1. The danger in discovering civil claims of potential employees.

Knowing the criminal history of all of your employees is considered a necessity within many companies. Expanding this knowledge to include all other actions related to a potential employee’s legal history, however, opens up a can of worms that can implicate your business in a wrongful hiring lawsuit.

For example, a common civil claim that may appear on a broader background check involves marital divorce. If a potential employee discovers (through the interview process, for example) that his or her divorce proceedings turned up in during the pre-employment screening process, the candidate could claim discrimination on the basis of marital status if not hired. The same goes for race, ethnicity and disability status.

The accusation of discrimination is nothing to take lightly, so it is best to consider these possibilities when choosing the size and scope of your employment background checks.

2. Insulate the hiring committee from prohibited documents.

All employment background check results should be held strictly within the human resources department of your company, unavailable to all managers involved in the hiring process. If you are someone who is ultimately involved in making the hiring decision, you should never view these documents, as doing so can quickly implicate you in a possible discrimination suit.

3.  Use a reputable background check company.

One of the easiest ways to ensure your company receives only the information you request is to work with a professional employment background check company that has a proven reputation for being knowledgeable, professional and ethical. It is recommended that you choose a firm that is a part of the National Association of Professional Background Screeners. It’s also a good idea to review the company’s website and ask for references from current clients to confirm the company’s reputation.

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