When looking for ways to reduce costs it might be tempting to skip running background checks on your applicants. How often does a criminal check turn up something serious? How often does an applicant not have a college degree they claim to have? You might think the odds are in your favor, but they are not. All it take is one incident to lead to trouble. Background screening is a lot like insurance. It’s there to protect you in those “what if” situations. And like insurance – the cost of being without coverage in the case of a bad event far exceeds the upfront cost. Background screening is useful in any size organizations – from small companies with few employees to large companies with sophisticate human resources departments. Background screening will protect your company and your people by providing information on which you can base an informed hiring decision.
Background screening is important, as detailed above – but, who is your background screening program or provider held accountable too? The legislation that governs background screening is the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). The FCRA applies to all types of background screening – not just credit reports.
The FCRA covers credit reports, criminal reports and just about any information that a third party company might provide to you such as:
- Employment verifications
- Employment references
- Driving records
- Drug screening records
- Medical testing
The constraints the Fair Crediting Reporting Act places on employment screening can seem daunting at first. However, if you feel helpless in terms of background screening and the FCRA constraints, the PeopleFacts team can set you on a path toward having a compliant screening program.
Want to learn more? Catch up with our webinar series here: https://peoplefacts.com/webinars/
