Firms' search for truth leads to new questions - Analysis of background checks
shows employers how workers in their industry compare with others
Monday, March 13, 2006 Peter Krouse, Plain Dealer Reporter
Who's more likely to fail an employment-related drug test: People applying for
jobs as construction workers or as teachers?
According to a report by
InfoLink Screening Services Inc., those seeking education jobs are far
more likely to test positive.
Infolink co-founder Barry Nadell is not sure why, though he said that being
around more young people could expose people in education to more drugs.
But before you canonize the building trades, know that construction industry
applicants are more likely to have a criminal background or a motor vehicle
violation than those in education, not to mention the 14 other job categories
included in the report.
Nadell can't fully explain the percentages contained in his
company's findings. But he believes they are valuable because clients
can see how their industry compares with others and whether they are doing
pre-employment checks for the right things.
For example, if the available data show that an industry has a high percentage
of "hits" in a certain problem area, companies in the industry that don't
already screen for that problem might want to start. InfoLink used the results
of its own client screenings in 2005, mostly pre-employment, to produce the data.
The idea of checking someone's background has been around as long as private
detection, said Nadell, who quit his job in the insurance industry to help his
wife, a former human resources specialist for the American Cancer Society,
start InfoLink in 1994. InfoLink, based in Chatsworth, Calif., was recently
acquired by Kroll Inc.
Digging into someone's past can save a company the time, money and
embarrassment of hiring a bad employee or one who is being less than honest. In
February, David Edmondson stepped down as chief executive of RadioShack Corp.
after it was revealed that he had misrepresented his academic history.
In some cases, people with past problems go through staffing agencies to get
jobs, thinking they are less likely to be checked out, Nadell said.
But an increasing number of companies are requiring staffing agencies to
perform background checks, too.
With all that checking going on, the issue becomes how much background
information to seek and what to do with it. Just because you can check
somebody's credit history or workers' compensation history doesn't mean you
should spend the dollars doing so, say those familiar with the legal and
practical aspects of background checks.
Certain kinds of testing and checking are perfectly acceptable, said Scott
Cohen, national practice leader of talent management at human resources
consulting firm Watson Wyatt Worldwide.
It may be logical to check the credit history of somebody who will be handling
money, he said. But should, say, a movie theater do the same for a kid hired
simply to take tickets?
Companies should consider relevancy when ordering checks and also be aware that
drug tests can sometimes show a false positive, Cohen said.
At the United Way of Greater Cleveland, all job applicants go through criminal
record checks, a drug test and past-employment verification, said United Way
spokeswoman Jenna Snyder. The organization also might verify an applicant's
education, depending on job requirements and other factors.
The InfoLink survey suggests that nonprofit applicants in general have a high
incidence of discrepancies when it comes to verifying their employment and
education, although Snyder said the United Way of Greater Cleveland's
experience differs.
Among InfoLink’s nonprofit clients, discrepancies popped up more than 46
percent of the time when it came to verifying prior jobs and nearly 22 percent
of the time when it came to checking out education.
But at United Way of Greater Cleveland, issues of any kind related to
background checks arose only twice in the past two years, Snyder said, and
that's out of 100 applicants. The hits were for criminal offenses.
Nadell could offer no explanation for the nonprofit percentages. Nor could Paul
Gerhart, professor of labor and human resources at the Weatherhead School of
Management at Case Western Reserve University. He also struggled to explain the
high incidence of positive drug tests in his own profession.
"Maybe people in education think they can get away with it for some reason," he said.
Gerhart did say, however, that the increase in background checking over the
past 20 years has been a positive step.
But how a company handles that information can have legal implications.
Employers need to be concerned about "negligent
hiring," said Meredith Watts, an associate at the Duvin Cahn & Hutton
law firm. A day-care provider obviously does not want the liability of hiring a
child molester, she said, but other situations are not that obvious. It might
be OK, for example, for a company to hire somebody with a five-year-old drug
conviction to deliver interoffice mail.
Similar issues apply when a background check turns up a problem with a current
employee. A company can be liable for "negligent retention," she said.
At Mr. Gasket, a Brooklyn manufacturer of performance auto parts, the company
policy is not to hire anybody with a felony conviction in the previous five
years, said Alice Bissett, director of human resources.
Bissett said background screening has turned up only three or four such
problems among 162 applicants in the past 3½ years. Mr. Gasket uses InfoLink
Screening for its background checks, Bissett said, but not for drug testing.
The company checks only those areas it believes are pertinent to the job, she
said. While everyone gets a drug test and a criminal background check, only
those going into finance will have their credit histories checked. That's
because someone who has a lot of debt could be tempted to embezzle if they are
around company coffers.
In the same way, only those who will be driving company vehicles will have
their driving records scrutinized.
"It's all got to be job-related," Bissett said.
Sometimes it doesn't pay to collect too much data, she said, because employers
are required to share all derogatory information with an employee. Something
that had no bearing on a company's decision not to hire someone may be
interpreted by that person as the reason for being passed over.
To reach this Plain Dealer reporter: pkrouse@plaind.com, 216-999-4834
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