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Background Checks for Construction and Manufacturing: A Guide
Construction and Manufacturing Background Checks
It's hard to argue that the construction and manufacturing industries aren't the backbone of modern society. From the builders that give families a place to live and businesses a place to work to the manufacturers that ensure we can enjoy all the comforts and convenience of modern life, these sectors are a fundamentally powerful element of the economy. Continuously high demand, especially for new construction to address space shortages in parts of the country, mean that employers in both industries must engage in ongoing efforts to recruit and retain talented workers capable of delivering quality outcomes. When there's such a pressing need to "staff up" and to do so quickly, are construction background checks an integral part of the hiring process today?
The answer is a resounding "yes" for many reasons we'll explore below. From protecting other members of your crew to ensuring your business can win important contracts from public entities, construction and manufacturing background checks have a key role to play that you can't afford to overlook.
At a time when there are many concerns about "time to hire" and when evolving legislation creates hiring challenges for manufacturers, the thought of including yet another step in the hiring process gives some employers pause. In almost every case, though, this concern stems from an unfounded premise: that background checks are necessarily a slow or tedious process.
With support from a team such as backgroundchecks.com, you'll find the opposite is true. We can process most construction and manufacturing background checks in seconds with a professionally maintained database of criminal records collected nationwide. With such speed, you can afford the time it takes to engage in other verification efforts, ultimately ensuring you build a team you can trust with confidence.
Let's explore the specific reasons why these industries should have a robust policy in place for vetting job applicants, dig in to how to use background checks legally and consider what goes into a comprehensive background check.
Why Do Construction and Manufacturing Companies Need Background Checks?
There are three fundamental reasons to include employee vetting in your hiring process. Primarily, businesses should endeavor to understand as much as possible about those they intend to bring on board. For example, does an applicant have the right skills to work with you? Have they truthfully represented their experience and prior employment experience, or have they embellished their resume as many job seekers do?
Second, background checks work to keep your business and its employees safer. While no crystal ball can predict when or if someone will commit a crime again in the future, evidence of past wrongdoing may give you pause in some cases. For example, someone with a two-year-old felony conviction for a violent assault may not be the best fit for your team. Such a person may not be suited to a high-pressure work environment with time constraints. However, every individual is different—that same person might have an extensive paper trail concerning rehabilitative efforts that could make them a potential employee. Evaluating everyone on their merits and circumstances to make the best decisions for your company would be best.
Finally, vetting provides your business with a shield against litigation. If you do not vet applicants and someone in your employ commits a crime on the job that harms someone else, you may be liable for negligent hiring. In other words, the law expects you to do your due diligence to avoid making unnecessarily risky hires. Without taking those steps, an injured party and a savvy law firm could tie up your business in court for months, leading to costly settlements and judgments.
Knowledge, safety, and liability—background checks for construction workers and manufacturers have their place in the hiring process for good reasons you can't afford to ignore.
Compliance Items and Legislation to Keep in Mind
Even when you recognize the importance of background checks, you must first consider the proper way to use them before ordering them on job candidates. Remember, the law considers background checks to be a type of consumer reporting, which the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act governs. Builders and manufacturers may also face additional regulatory pressures and concerns within their county, greater metropolitan region, or state.
Failing to understand how to comply with the law and how to use background checks legally can expose your company to claims of discrimination and unfair hiring practices. You could even face a lawsuit, or the government might levy fines against your company. At a time when laws and even social attitudes around some forms of drug use continue to change rapidly, even the pre-employment drug test is no longer as simple as it once was.
What is a "ban the box" law? What does the EEOC have to say about using background checks fairly? We have the answers concerning manufacturers and legislation about background checks.
Ban the Box Regulations
For many years, it has been a standard practice among various employers to include questions on job applications about an individual's criminal history. This often takes the form of a check box that asks applicants to indicate whether they have ever been convicted of a crime. Usually, applications ask about felonies, but some employers may ask about convictions. Applicants must often also supply some details about the conviction.
However, this practice has fallen out of favor rapidly in many jurisdictions nationwide as advocates for reform have pushed to "ban the box" on applications. The reasoning is simple: asking about criminal history so early, before an employer can fully evaluate an individual, opens the door to discrimination. Many companies quietly discarded or ignored applications with the conviction box checked. With millions of Americans incarcerated and many tens of millions more living with criminal records, the barrier to employment was too high.
Ban the box laws require employers to delay questions about criminal history and the use of background checks until later in the process. The idea: require businesses to evaluate individuals as candidates first. Many ban the box laws stipulate that employers must provide a conditional job offer before they can order a criminal history check. Some impose stiff fines on companies for violating these rules. So far, 37 states have some form of a "ban the box" law on the books, and more than a hundred counties and cities have enacted their own rules.
Construction companies must navigate "ban the box" laws in a manner unique compared to many other industries. In some states and municipalities, these rules only apply to public employment with the government rather than all private businesses. Even if a builder is not obligated to delay checks as a private employer, they may face a requirement to do so if they wish to bid for and win government contracts. Therefore, any "ban the box" law in your area of operation merits careful consideration for compliance purposes.
Always review state and local laws before using consumer reporting products.
The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA)
The Fair Credit Reporting Act, or FCRA, was initially passed into law to rein in rampant and discriminatory misuse of consumer credit information. Before the FCRA, consumers had very little recourse if there was inaccurate information about them contained in their credit reports. Some people even dealt with deliberate misinformation. The FCRA implemented a framework that reduced these problems and protected individual rights.
Under the FCRA, using background checks for employment screening counts as ordering a consumer report. As such, the FCRA regulates all background checks and how businesses may use them. Employers face several critical requirements that they must take care to meet—overzealous and litigious lawyers have often feasted on minor FCRA compliance deviations that turned into massive, multi-million-dollar class action lawsuits. Many of those suits do not end in the employer's favor.
What are the critical and essential elements of FCRA compliance?
You must provide a "standalone disclosure" of your intention to use a background check as part of the hiring process. This cannot be a part of the application packet or other pre-employment materials and must be genuinely "standalone."
You must get the applicant's signed consent to perform the check. (You may request permission on the disclosure form.)
If you change your decision based on a background check, you must issue a "pre-adverse action notice" of your intent to do so with a summary of rights and a copy of the background check. You must then allow a reasonable amount of time, typically approximately five business days before you make the decision final.
If the applicant disputes the report, you must accept any supplemental information before a final decision.
When no dispute occurs, or additional information does not change your mind, you must issue a final "adverse action letter." This must include the background check company's info, other boilerplate text, and information that the applicant may order their own report again for free.
To learn more about the ins and outs of the FCRA and what it means for background checks for construction companies and manufacturers, our in-depth knowledge base article has even more detail for you to explore.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)
In 2012, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission determined that using criminal history information as part of the hiring process fundamentally impacts some more than others, especially African Americans and Hispanics. As such, the EEOC voted to issue new guidance on how employers may use and consider conviction records. The EEOC holds that the purpose of searching records must be strictly "job-related" and a necessity for doing business.
As part of this change, the EEOC issued new guidance to employers on how0 to ensure that they maintain fair hiring practices that do not unfairly discriminate against job seekers. These practices include the following:
Conduct individual assessments of all applicants whose checks return criminal records.
Provide applicants with a chance to explain criminal records and make their case for hiring.
Consider the circumstances of the offense and how much time has passed since the event.
Consider any efforts made towards rehabilitation.
Look into prior employment to see if the individual has worked safely since their release.
Consider whether any prior convictions directly connect to the job, e.g., a fraud charge in the history of someone seeking to work in an accounts payable department.
Everyone must maintain fairness in hiring and avoid disparate impacts on minority groups, including builders and manufacturers. Carefully review your policy and consult an employment lawyer to ensure your procedure aligns with EEOC expectations.
Navigating Changing Drug Laws
Drug testing is often a supplementary procedure in a construction or manufacturing employment background check. In both sectors, worker safety on the job site is paramount. Impairment could lead to serious injury or even accidental death. Accordingly, the drug test remains a pillar of the hiring process for these industries. Even so, with changing drug laws across the country, especially surrounding cannabis, companies must adopt a more considered approach based on these changes and local laws.
Many states now have medical marijuana, and a growing number have legalized recreational cannabis even as the substance remains illegal at the federal level. Seven of these states go so far as to bar employers from acting against individuals for off-duty marijuana use, and many assert that medical marijuana usage cannot be considered a disqualifying factor. Companies must carefully review the rules and regulations applicable to their location before considering the results of drug tests.
Some employers have chosen to skip drug tests altogether because of these changes. However, screening panels can still alert you to concerns surrounding the abuse of hard drugs such as methamphetamine or opioids, which can cause substantially more impairment on the job. Ultimately, you will need to build a workplace drug policy that neither excludes qualified candidates nor compromises safety. With more changes to drug laws likely in the next few years, this is an area where hiring managers should frequently re-evaluate their policies.
What Background Checks Should You Use?
With a legally compliant policy for using background checks, it's time to consider how your business can effectively vet job applicants to hire those who pose the lowest levels of up-front risk to your business. How does that look in practice? Can you order a criminal history check, review that, and call it a day? Likely not. Every effective background check process involves more than a basic criminal record check, even though such reports are what most people think of when they hear about “submitting to a background check."
Even though construction and manufacturing have sometimes been called "unskilled" labor, the reality couldn't be farther from the truth. The work done by these employees has a long-lasting impact on the world, from creating products used in the home to creating homes themselves. Quality and reliability come from knowledgeable, experienced, and professional workers—and your background check should play a key role in identifying who is the best fit for your team.
What checks do you need to use to ensure you're creating a team that will work safely and effectively together?
Identity Verification
It's essential to be sure that you obtain the records of the correct individual when you start an employment background check for a manufacturing position. It is also necessary to know that you have followed every avenue to locate any criminal records associated with someone, even if they went by another name in the past. Verifying identity is a simple way to ensure that someone can legally come to work for you.
Using a Social Security number, it is possible to determine whether any aliases are associated with it other than the name your applicant supplied. Using identity verification results creates an opportunity for a more far-reaching background check that may uncover records created under that alias. This simple search is a good place to begin and creates a solid foundation of confidence for you to continue with vetting.
Criminal Record Checks
The backbone of every hiring process, criminal record checks, lets you move through the process of selecting workers with confidence and a more fully informed point of view. Unfortunately, there is no single central repository for all criminal records nationwide. Instead, they exist in a patchwork of fragmented systems that stretch from county courts up to the level of the state police. Other kinds of checks, such as an FBI background check, consult different sources altogether.
Selecting the right background check package for your business is essential. For builders, a check of state and local criminal records may provide the level of detail you need. For manufacturers in sensitive industries such as defense, a more comprehensive investigation of someone's background may be necessary. To streamline the process, we regularly collect criminal record information from resources nationwide and maintain a database that offers instant results for large portions of the country. Results for some states, such as California, may take longer due to local regulations.
Remember, examining criminal histories are an important element of safeguarding against future claims of negligent hiring. Explore our case study on industrial manufacturing and construction background checks for real-world examples of how we’ve helped businesses navigate challenges in this arena.
Metro, County, and State Considerations
While manufacturing tends to occur in single locations, construction companies may frequently accept projects in different areas. Sometimes, you may even take on jobs outside your state. In doing so, it is important to be mindful of how background check regulations can change. For example, when operating in a large metropolitan area, you may face compliance obligations when hiring in one county rather than another. One state may ban the box; another may not. Ensuring you have a clear understanding of these differences is key.
Likewise, it is essential to recognize that individuals often move frequently, especially in an industry such as construction. A background check that only consults records from an individual's current county or metro could leave important records undiscovered. Using a far-reaching tool such as the US OneSEARCH, you can instantly access records compiled from all 50 states and all the major metropolitan areas. When necessary, you can drill down to individual counties and search for records that still need to make it into state databases. In doing so, you can conduct even more thorough due diligence when necessary.
Driving Records
In most cases, neither builders nor manufacturers will need to consult driving records before hiring. Only if you intend to hire someone to operate a commercial vehicle (as defined by Department of Transportation regulations) will you need to consult driving records. This is a separate vetting process, different from the criminal process, that comes with its own set of considerations, regulations, and compliance concerns. Learn more about what an MVR report is and who needs to order them now.
Drug Screening
As we mentioned earlier, drug screening is an important part of maintaining safety on the site. An impaired coworker is a danger to everyone nearby. While drug tests can't indicate whether someone is intoxicated at the time, they can reveal patterns of use. Be aware of local rules regarding cannabis and employment in your area. Besides those regulations, where they exist, employers remain free to develop their own drug policy, including taking a zero-tolerance approach to any positive test during the hiring process. Most screening panels will show results for common drugs, including meth, heroin, cocaine, and others, enabling a more fully informed decision-making process.
Resume Verification
Employment verifications are an important part of construction background checks since they help you understand whether someone has been truthful about their previous work experience. You can also confirm their job duties, the dates they worked, and learn to a limited degree what their time with other employers was like. Many people lie on their resumes, even those seeking jobs in construction environments, and they may pad their experience or misrepresent their qualifications. Taking the time to investigate these claims and verify their accuracy lets you build confidence in a team with the required skills and knowledge.
Preventing Sexual Misconduct
Employers should strive to prevent sexual harassment and improper behavior in the workplace. As part of that initiative, checking sex offender registries while hiring is a critical step. All sex offenders face a requirement to register, especially when they move from one location to another. While such an offense may not be an automatic disqualifier, employers should carefully consider how recent the offense was and the severity of the crime.
Hiring someone with a severe offense who then commits another similar crime could reflect on your business poorly. Our background checks include consulting state registries for matches by default.
National Security Checks
If you intend to bid on certain kinds of public contracts, such as those offered by the federal government, your business may also need to screen its employees against sanctions lists and take other measures related to national security. The government cannot and will not work with sanctioned entities or participate in a project that otherwise violates international sanctions. Checking names against the terrorist watch list and even the Interpol fugitive list may also be necessary.
Because government procedures build security into each step, it is important for businesses to understand how to meet those obligations. Our National Security OneSEARCH ensures that you can rapidly check more than 100 different critical sources to vet certified professionals, executives, or even rank-and-file employees when required.
Background Screening FAQs
Read on for answers to many of the most frequently asked questions about vetting employees with help from background screening companies.
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For companies looking to hire builders, background checks must follow a well-defined process that follows the law. This includes meeting disclosure and consent requirements defined by the Fair Credit Reporting Act. After obtaining consent and extending a conditional offer where necessary based on local law, you can use a consumer reporting agency such as backgroundchecks.com to obtain a criminal record check. This report contains the background information you need to know. If you need to hire someone with a specific skill set or certifications in building, you should take additional steps to verify that they have fairly and honestly represented their qualifications. With criminal history checks, professional verifications, and pre-employment drug testing, you can select qualified candidates to build a highly effective team.
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A motor vehicle record (MVR) check is a reporting tool that provides employers access to an individual’s motor vehicle record. All businesses under the federal Department of Transportation (DOT) regulations must use an MVR background check, meaning all trucking companies and other commercial operators face this mandate. Like a criminal background check, a motor vehicle record check is critical to a safe and well-informed process for hiring drivers. Related Post: What Do You Need To Know About the Driver Background Check?
Additional Resources
Sex Offenders Have an Open Door in Florida Thanks to Weak Law
James Roy Melton Jr. is a convicted child sex offender in the state of Florida. Even after his conviction, however, he had been able to secure work as a camp counselor and sadly, it is unknown exactly how many children may have been abused by him. The summer of 1997 was the summer that Melton Jr. was able to work at the summer camp and the laws have still not been changed.
The state of Florida does have laws in place to protect children from sex offenders, but in one of the most obvious places, summer camp, laws don’t provide or mandate any type of reporting or enforcement. Though it has been almost 15 years since Melton Jr. worked at the camp and he has been in prison ever since, Florida residents are puzzled as to why nothing has been done to change these laws. When earlier reports surfaced in 2010 lawmakers like Senate President Mike Haridopolos; Stuart Rep. William Snyder, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee; and Sen. Ronda Storms, head of the Senate’s Children and Families Committee all promised swift change, but didn’t follow through in 2011
As it stands, Florida summer camps are effectively unregulated in regards to licensing and screening of employees and volunteers. In fact, the state has no idea how many camps there are in Florida nor do they have any information on the people who run them. Once James Roy Melton is released he could set up a camp without any license, invite children in and who knows what may happen. It is thought that Melton Jr. abused at least 12 children when he was at the camp in 1997, but even now, since nothing is regulated when it comes to camp, it is unknown if there were just 12 or possibly more.
There are only six states in the nation who do not regulate camps and Florida is by far the largest of them. It is known and on record that lawmakers have been made aware of this situation since at least the mid 1980s. The legislature could decide to authorize third party screening companies like backgroundchecks.com to carry out and certify checks. This company has dedicated programs allowing sponsoring organizations to set screening standards and compel employees and volunteers in participating organizations to go through basic or advanced background checks, which nearly always includes a product like the US Offender OneSEARCH which instantly checks sex offender registries throughout the US.
backgroundchecks.com - a founding member of the National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS®) - serves thousands of customers nationwide, from small businesses to Fortune 100 companies by providing comprehensive screening services. Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, with an Eastern Operations Center in Chapin, S.C., backgroundchecks.com is home to one of the largest online criminal conviction databases in the industry. For more information about backgroundchecks’ offerings, please visit www.backgroundchecks.com.
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Source: http://www.wptv.com/dpp/news/weak-laws-pave-way-for-child-sexual-abuse
Massachusetts School District Performing “Flash” Background Checks on Visitors
In an effort to protect students, the Medford, MA school district has launched a new background check system in their schools. All visitors of any of the Medford schools will need to show ID at the school office. At that point, the office will run an instant background check on the person which will show any criminal history. The person’s name will also be run though the state sex offender database.
If a person who is at the office has a suspicious record, administrators are immediately notified and the person is asked to leave school property. Though the system was $10,000, something that many schools may not be able to afford, Medford schools feel as if it was a good investment. In addition to keeping their visitors on track when it comes to these instant background checks, all staff and volunteers are put through a more extensive background check like those you may find at third party companies.
One of these third party companies, backgroundchecks.com, offers several products that can offer such instant checks to help keep their schools safe. One of the instant products is called US Offender OneSEARCH.
backgroundchecks.com - a founding member of the National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS®) - serves thousands of customers nationwide, from small businesses to Fortune 100 companies by providing comprehensive screening services. Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, with an Eastern Operations Center in Chapin, S.C., backgroundchecks.com is home to one of the largest online criminal conviction databases in the industry. For more information about backgroundchecks’ offerings, please visit www.backgroundchecks.com.
Oregon Makes Background Checks Easier for Service and Education Volunteers
In the state of Oregon, new legislation has been passed that will make background checks for education and service volunteers easier. The new bill will also make it mandatory for some people who work for the state government to go through background checks who were never required to get background checks before. These new requirements are important as they will make it harder for criminals to get access to important state information as well as access to children and the elderly.
Per the new regulations, any employee who currently works or volunteers in service or education in the state will be required to go through a background check. Prior to the passing of this legislation, the system was extremely confusing as there were several tiers and requirements depending on the position. Some examples of those who will now be required to get background checks are custodians, home care employees, and volunteers at schools. The new background check requirements will streamline the way hiring and processing employees are done.
Now that the state is checking all of their service and education employees and volunteers, they are taking a great step towards making sure all state employees are covered by background checks. There are definitely certain things that the state could to do make these background checks even more effective however. Making policies to run background checks on all employees every year or every five years would be an excellent way to ensure safety in the work place. When these policies are enacted, companies and organizations will be able to ensure that the people they hire have clean backgrounds. This will also protect organizations from any liability they may face should an employee commit a crime.
When organizations and companies are looking to do a thorough and extensive background check, hiring a third party background check company like backgroundchecks.com will likely be able to make this process easy and make sure that all employees are compliant with policies. There are many products available from backgroundchecks.com including Multi-State OneSEARCH. This product is great as it allows companies and organizations to search records in up to five states. The records that are available include criminal records at the county and state level as well as a search of state sex offender registries.
backgroundchecks.com - a founding member of the National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS®) - serves thousands of customers nationwide, from small businesses to Fortune 100 companies by providing comprehensive screening services. Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, with an Eastern Operations Center in Chapin, S.C., backgroundchecks.com is home to one of the largest online criminal conviction databases in the industry. For more information about backgroundchecks’ offerings, please visit www.backgroundchecks.com.
Safe Churches are a Priority for Seven-Day Adventists
The Seventh - day Adventist church is taking a step that many other corporations have done: they are putting their employees through background checks in an attempt to help keep children safe. Though the Seventh-day Adventists are technically a religious organization, they have employees just like any other corporation and they are taking on the responsibility of performing background checks on their employees in order to keep their churches safe from misconduct and abuse, something that has plagued other religious organizations in recent years.
In addition to performing background checks on employees and volunteers, the church is also using education in order to teach both children and adults what is right or wrong when it comes to conduct and interactions with each other. They want to make sure that the church is a safe place for children to be and have really made a lot of progress, more so than other churches, when it comes to making sure they are covering all the ground they can.
Some of the other things that the church is doing, short of background checks and education, is making many of their employees mandated reporters, which means they are obligated to report any misconduct or wrongdoing to the powers that be. This includes anything that can be seen as a crime against a child. The great thing about this is that it has been in place since 2003, much sooner than many corporations began doing this. Though the check on volunteers was not added until 2011, the church, overall, has been very proactive about setting up a very safe environment for children. Volunteers include those members of the church who teach religious classes to children, those who work with church youth groups and anyone involved in the youth programs of the church.
Organizations, like the Seventh-day Adventist church, who are taking the responsible route when it comes to background checks could really benefit from using a third party like backgroundchecks.com. This background check company has many products that really help organizations get a thorough view of their employees. One of these products is known as the US Offender OneSEARCH and would be very helpful to the church as it searches for matches against sex offender databases all over the country. The church has a responsibility not to allow sex offenders near children and using these products is an excellent way to go about it.
backgroundchecks.com - a founding member of the National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS®) - serves thousands of customers nationwide, from small businesses to Fortune 100 companies by providing comprehensive screening services. Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, with an Eastern Operations Center in Chapin, S.C., backgroundchecks.com is home to one of the largest online criminal conviction databases in the industry. For more information about backgroundchecks’ offerings, please visit www.backgroundchecks.com.
Rhode Island Background Check Law Has Passed
After a week of debate, Rhode Island lawmakers have passed a new background check law that will make it mandatory to perform a criminal background check on adult volunteers who wish to participate in youth mentoring. This law would require all applicants who want to work with children through state programs to undergo a full criminal background check.
Currently, Rhode Island requires background checks for all adults who work in schools, but mentor programs are not included in that law, though some of the mentor programs do take place in school locations. Lawmakers believe that the expansion of the previous law will help keep children safer both during the school day as well as when participating in afterschool activities.
Many companies, as well as schools, all over the country use third party background check companies like backgroundchecks.com for their background checks. This company in particular has a wide variety of products that would be great to use when checking the backgrounds of those who work with children. One of them is called US Offender OneSEARCH and it will be able to show companies if the person in question has a history of sexual crimes anywhere in the US, as well as in some US territories.
backgroundchecks.com - a founding member of the National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS®) - serves thousands of customers nationwide, from small businesses to Fortune 100 companies by providing comprehensive screening services. Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, with an Eastern Operations Center in Chapin, S.C., backgroundchecks.com is home to one of the largest online criminal conviction databases in the industry. For more information about backgroundchecks’ offerings, please visit www.backgroundchecks.com.
Lawsuits Filed Against Schools Due to Changes in Background Check Policy
The state of Pennsylvania have been sued by four teachers who are fighting to save their jobs after new laws have been put in place to protect children. Under a new Pennsylvania state law, all school employees, including teachers, administrators, contractors and support staff, must report certain arrests or convictions within three days. The crimes that must be reported include physical assault, sexual assault, homicides and kidnapping. In total, there are 28 crimes that must be reported to authorities.
Four separate lawsuits have been filed against the state due to this new law as the interpretation of the law seems to be causing problems. The language of the law states that anyone who is convicted of one of these 28 crimes would be terminated from their job immediately. However, it seems to imply that this is only for future employees, not those who are already employed by Pennsylvania schools. It is important to note that those who are filing lawsuits are those who have been convicted of one of these 28 crimes and are at risk of termination due to this new law. If they lose the lawsuits, they will lose their jobs as teachers.
The teachers will be fighting that the law is unconstitutional and that the results of these background checks should not apply to current employees. They state that it violates the due-process rights of the employees and they should not have to suffer further for these crimes as they have already paid their dues to society for the crimes that they have committed. This will be a hard sell in court, however, since many schools have programs where criminal monitoring is done continuously and most companies in the US have similar policies as Pennsylvania schools have. In general, most people believe that this is the right thing to do in order to keep school children safe while in a learning environment.
When it comes to the companies who do these background checks, many of them, like backgroundchecks.com, offer some excellent products that allow companies to make sure they are hiring and retaining employees who have a clean criminal background. There are even products like Ongoing Criminal Monitoring that will be used as an add-on to their other products. When used in conjunction with their other products, criminal monitoring can be used to continuously scan a person’s name and report when new crimes appear on their records. Using these tools can help keep children safe and well while they go through their school day.
Some Pre-Schools are Not Performing Background Checks on Volunteers
It has just been uncovered by a local television station that some Washington state pre-schools are not performing background checks on their volunteers. Parents are, of course, outraged by this development and many are calling for action to be taken. Though there are some pre-schools that are making the responsible choice and performing background checks on everyone who is in contact with children, those who are not area only putting kids and other employees at risk.
According to news reports, the schools that have been found to be lax in their background check policies are those in the Pasco, WA area. The television station who has released this information state that their research yielded the frightening statistic that only 4 out of 7 pre-schools that were contacted actually check their volunteers against criminal databases. For the 3 that are not performing these checks, the children who attend these pre-schools could be in a lot of danger.
Those schools who are currently performing background checks on volunteers and employees like Small World Learning Centers, has a defined process that everyone must go through who will be working with children. They need to get a background check done though the Department of Early Learning then send the official information back to the Small World Learning Center where they will be working. Only then will they be able to volunteer their time.
It is important to note that only parents and guardians of other students at pre-schools are generally allowed to volunteer for things, but these people can certainly have criminal backgrounds that many people would not be comfortable letting their young children communicate with. Gateway, another pre-school in the area does not background check any of their volunteers. According to a representative of the school, volunteers are not allowed to be in the classroom without a teacher, so they do not feel the need to background check everyone. However, just because there is a policy that a volunteer cannot be in the classroom alone, doesn’t mean it won’t happen.
For those pre-schools that are not performing background checks, hiring a third party company like backgroundchecks.com would be extremely beneficial to them. There are several great products that backgroundchecks.com offers like US Offender OneSEARCH which searches all sex offender registries nationwide. With this and other products that backgroundchecks.com provides, these schools could be thoroughly checking volunteers as well as employees, which can help keep children safer.
backgroundchecks.com - a founding member of the National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS®) - serves thousands of customers nationwide, from small businesses to Fortune 100 companies by providing comprehensive screening services. Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, with an Eastern Operations Center in Chapin, S.C., backgroundchecks.com is home to one of the largest online criminal conviction databases in the industry. For more information about backgroundchecks’ offerings, please visit www.backgroundchecks.com.
Source: http://www.keprtv.com/news/local/No-background-checks-on-volunteers-139410258.html
Oklahoma Lawmakers Considering Forcing Volunteers to Pay for Their Own Background Checks
Lawmakers in Oklahoma are seriously considering a bill that would make it legal to force volunteers who work with children to pay for their own background checks. Some of the background checks, which cost about $40, could be paid for by organizations, but the organizations would not be responsible for the payment and would have the option to pass the fee along to the volunteers. Currently, Oklahoma law does not make it mandatory for volunteers to undergo a background check, but this bill aims to change that as well.
Oklahoma State Rep. Joe Dorman, who initiated this bill, states that he wants to make sure that honest adult volunteers are not swayed from volunteering because of this charge, but also wants to make sure that quality adults with no criminal history are the ones who are mentoring Oklahoma’s children. He additionally states that these volunteers would only need to go through a background check one time and stressed that organizations have the choice to pay for the background check, so the fee may not even be applicable.
These background checks would cover any adult who volunteers to work in any capacity where they would be with a child overnight or someone who volunteers to be in any position where they would be with a child in a locker room.
Though some opponents of this bill believe that the biggest problem is the cost, others say that this bill is simply not enough and other measures should be put into place in order to protect the children in Oklahoma State. For example, it is stated that anyone who works with children, such as a coach, who may be with children overnight will have to have a background check, but other volunteers, who may be with children during the day would not have to go through a background check.
For those organizations who want to perform background checks on volunteers, third party companies offer dedicated programs like backgroundchecks.com’s selectCHECK tailored to volunteer screening. Screening packages can be customized for each organization’s standard, including the addition of the US OneSEARCH which will be able to instantly search criminal records across all fifty states and several US territories. This product also includes a search of sex offender registries, which is always a high priority for screening solutions targeted towards subjects working with children.
backgroundchecks.com - a founding member of the National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS®) - serves thousands of customers nationwide, from small businesses to Fortune 100 companies by providing comprehensive screening services. Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, with an Eastern Operations Center in Chapin, S.C., backgroundchecks.com is home to one of the largest online criminal conviction databases in the industry. For more information about backgroundchecks’ offerings, please visit www.backgroundchecks.com.
Iowa Lawmakers Re-Evaluate Background Checks for Nursing Home Workers
In the state of Iowa, the law that requires nursing home workers to go through background checks is fourteen years old and many believe these requirements are outdated and need an update. A new bill has been introduced into legislation that would alter the way that background checks are done on nursing home employees. These new changes are supported by both state regulators as well as by the nursing home industry.
Currently the background check done on new nursing home workers only takes a few seconds and is simply an initial search for records. If there are no matches for felonies, certain misdemeanors or abuse, the job applicant can be hired at that time. If there is a match during the few seconds that the background check is going on, the applicant will go through a more stringent process where it will be determined how serious the previous crimes are and if these crimes would be detrimental to the position or would lead to putting patients in danger.
Though this background check system is thorough, each time a person switches agencies or gets a new position, they must go through the background check again, including the extra work if any crimes are found. This wastes a lot of time and money as it is estimated that about 22% of all applicants need to go through the second background check. Lawmakers in the state believe that eliminating the second check and focusing on automatic elimination on some results would be a more efficient process when checking the backgrounds of potential hires.
Another way to streamline the hiring process would be to partner with a third party background check company like backgroundchecks.com. Due to the enormous volume of searches they perform they have already perfected the re-verification process of instant searches that result in hits and brought the research time down to just a few days instead of a weeklong process. During that re-verification backgroundchecks.com can also apply standardized grading criteria so that offenses that would NOT lead an applicant to be barred from working in an Iowa care facility would be removed. That way the nursing homes would know that in the final reports they would only be looking at criminal records that according to predefined criteria would typically lead the nursing home to bar the applicant. Saving the nursing home time and ensuring the consistent application of screening standards within and across nursing homes in the state of Iowa.
backgroundchecks.com - a founding member of the National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS®) - serves thousands of customers nationwide, from small businesses to Fortune 100 companies by providing comprehensive screening services. Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, with an Eastern Operations Center in Chapin, S.C., backgroundchecks.com is home to one of the largest online criminal conviction databases in the industry. For more information about backgroundchecks’ offerings, please visit www.backgroundchecks.com.
Are Universities Doing Enough When it Comes to Background Checks
Ever since the Penn State and Syracuse scandals came to light, colleges and universities across the country have been asked if they are doing enough when it comes to background checking their staff. One of these universities, Indiana State University, is really asking themselves that question as over the past two months three ISU employees have been arrested. Though the university states that all employees went through a background check and that the arrests are not related to their policy, there appear to be several employees who have been hired that have backgrounds that are less than desirable.
The current policy at ISU states that all new employees of the university are put through background checks including student employees who have access to sensitive information. However, these background checks are only done when an employee is hired and never again. In the case of ISU, they would benefit from hiring a third part background check company like backgroundchecks.com that would be able to offer specific products to enhance the way they are checking their existing employees. Products like their Ongoing Criminal Monitoring service can be added to traditional background checks to monitor for the occurance of new criminal records. ISU would be notified of any new criminal record that appeared for an employee's name.
backgroundchecks.com - a founding member of the National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS®) - serves thousands of customers nationwide, from small businesses to Fortune 100 companies by providing comprehensive screening services. Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, with an Eastern Operations Center in Chapin, S.C., backgroundchecks.com is home to one of the largest online criminal conviction databases in the industry. For more information about backgroundchecks’ offerings, please visit www.backgroundchecks.com.
Source: http://www.indianastatesman.com/news/background-checks-can-isu-do-more-1.2776783#.Tzj5CFFAXK4
Chicago Daycare Hires Sex Offender Even When They Knew His Background
A registered sex offender has been working at a Chicago area day care without the knowledge of parents, the community or other employees. Eric Ellis, the employee in question, was hired by the day care through a temp agency. Though Ellis worked in the kitchen and had no access to children, as soon as the management found out about the history of Ellis, they immediately removed him from the property.
Ellis states that both the day care center and the temp agency knew of this background as he informed them both. The day care, on the other hand, states that they only hire temps when regular employees are sick. They rely on the temporary agency to do the background checks on these employees. The day care does not do the background checks on temporary employees themselves, though they do background checks on permanent employees.
Parents had mixed thoughts about Ellis being inadvertently hired by the day care center. Some were understandably upset and are considering removing their children. Others, though happy that Ellis was quickly found, believe it was an honest mistake and do not hold the day care responsible. Both sides believe that the day care needs to re-evaluate the way they get employees, even those through background checks. Though the day care relies on the temporary agency to perform the background checks, they may consider taking a closer look at the results.
It is true that the temporary agency does background checks, but the day care did not take on the responsibility to actually look at the results of the background checks in question. It may be difficult to place blame in this situation as some would say the temporary agency is at fault for not informing the day care center of Ellis’ background and others would say the day care is to blame as they did not take the responsibility to check the background of Ellis themselves. Both agencies should likely re-evaluate their practice in this situation.
There are many third party companies like backgroundchecks.com who perform background checks instantly and have products like a US Offender OneSEARCH that can search through records in seconds. It contains records from all 50 states and US territories like Puerto Rico, Washington DC and Guam. If the day care in question had considered an option such as this, it is very possible that this entire situation could have been avoided.
backgroundchecks.com - a founding member of the National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS®) - serves thousands of customers nationwide, from small businesses to Fortune 100 companies by providing comprehensive screening services. Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, with an Eastern Operations Center in Chapin, S.C., backgroundchecks.com is home to one of the largest online criminal conviction databases in the industry. For more information about backgroundchecks’ offerings, please visit www.backgroundchecks.com.
