Employee screening should be a priority for every organization

What is employee screening?

Employee screening refers to comprehensive checks on a potential employee before hiring them onto your team. Screening can occur as part of the hiring process or when an employee is switching from one position to another. The goal of employee screenings is to uncover information about a potential employee’s past and verify the information they have already provided during the hiring process. Many organizations fail to do exhaustive screenings or neglect to do screenings at all. Employees with an unknown background can be a significant liability.

The first threat posed by an unscreened employee is legal liability. In some cases, an organization can be held legally liable for the actions of an employee if it is found that the organization did not do their due diligence during the hiring process. In 2016, a court in Texas awarded more than $1 million to the family of an employee killed on the job by another employee. The company hired the employee without looking into his criminal history. The court determined this was negligence on the part of the company. The company’s neglect in failing to screen led to the death of an employee and made them liable for more than $1 million[1]. Had the company completed a proper employee screening, they would have discovered the offender’s extensive criminal history and likely used the appropriate legal process to bypass hiring him.

Why are background checks important when hiring an employee

Unscreened employees also pose a threat to trade secrets or intellectual property of a company. Foreign companies and governments are actively recruiting individuals to get hired by companies to steal their information. Entrusting employees with valuable information and intellectual property is required to make businesses function properly. If a business is handing over information to unscreened employees, they might as well be handing over that information to competitors. A 2012 United States Senate report found that the average company will spend around $1.4 million to deal with intellectual property infringement[2]. Conservatively, employee theft of physical goods costs US companies more than $30 billion every single year[3]. Employee screening ensures that the people brought into a company can be trusted with trade secrets, intellectual property, and physical company property.

Not every company has the ability to complete employee screening internally based on limited staff. This is where third-party security services consulting firms come in to support this effort. Employee screening is complicated and requires searching through data, all while ensuring that employee protection laws remain protected. Security consulting firms are familiar with the process and better equipped to stay in legal compliance. 

Whether your organization is looking for employee screening services, due diligence checks, or help in creating an internal screening process, Freedom Consulting, LLC can help. For more info or to schedule a consultation please visit this link or email us at info@freedomconsultingservices.org.

References:

^[1] https://www.orangeleader.com/2016/11/14/jury-awards-war-hero-over-1-million-dollars-verdict-returned-on-employee-murder-lawsuit/

^[2] https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/aa0183d4-8ad9-488f-9e38-7150a3bb62be/intellectual-property-theft-and-the-economy.pdf

^[3] https://www.creditdonkey.com/employee-theft-statistics.html