Have you ever looked at a scene in a photograph and wondered what happened next.   Much like that photograph, a background check cannot tell you what happens next.  For an organization that is committed to providing a safe and healthy environment (whether it is a place to live, work, or volunteer), you need to know when the lives of your people may be disruptive to your organization or its other people.   Continually monitoring your people gives you an ongoing opportunity to receive an alert about new items that arise that might be beneficial for you to know.

Continuous monitoring is different from periodically re-screening (i.e. annually, every 2 years, etc.) a person and taking a new snapshot from a different point in time.   Continuous monitoring delivers real time alerts when new relevant information becomes available.   This puts you in a position of really knowing your people.

Here are two real examples of the power of continuous monitoring:

The Weekend DUI

One weekend Frank, a driver for a restaurant supply company, was involved in a minor injury accident while under the influence of alcohol.  He was arrested, taken into police custody and booked into jail.  He was out on bail by Monday morning and came to work later that afternoon when his shift was scheduled to begin.  He didn’t inform his employer about what had happened.  Because the company only runs background checks every two years it would likely not have learned of the DUI for another 14 months.  However, the company had a continuous monitoring program in place and received notification of Frank’s booking.  The alert was sent before Frank showed up for work on Monday.  Because the company became aware of the potential risk they were able to temporarily transfer Frank to a non-driving position while the DUI case was being resolved and referred Frank to the company’s employee assistance program.

The Expiring Professional License

A medical clinic dealing primarily with Medicaid patients requested professional license verification as part of their normal background check process.  They supplemented that process with a continuous monitoring program that included alerts for expiring credentials.  One of the RNs working at the facility allowed his nursing license to expire. He had moved without updating his address with the Nursing Board.  His renewal form was returned undeliverable and he simply missed the renewal deadline.  The office manager received an alert regarding the expired license as part of the continuous monitoring program.  The nurse was able to renew his license after a little bit of explanation and the clinic avoided a potentially damaging situation by catching it early.

Information – data – has become a form of currency.  The more you have the better, and the quicker you act to gather data, the better your decisions will be.  Continuous monitoring puts the right information in your hands as early as possible so that you can address problems before they become bigger problems.

For more information on continuous monitoring check out our upcoming webinar – https://peoplefacts.com/webinars/