The Cons of Not Running a Pre-Employment Background Check

Before you hire a prospective employee with a position within your company, we highly recommend running a pre-employment background check, and here is why. By using Reliable Background Screening, we can help protect you from potential future liabilities. Our services can also help to safeguard your assets and make your current employees feel safer at work. As such, it is not advisable to employ someone without doing a ‏pre-employment background screening. ‏

‏If your business is consistently hiring new staff, you should consider doing a pre-employment background check before they are hired. Here are some reasons why not doing so might cost you.‏

‏It Increases the Risk of Bad Hires‏

Statistics show that the replacement costs associated with a bad hire are about one to five times that of an individual’s yearly salary. Before you skip doing a pre-employment background screening, consider all the direct and indirect costs of recruiting and training. Unfortunately, the costs don’t end there. There is also the issue of wasted ongoing wages, benefits, and many other office resources. ‏

‏To avoid this sort of inconvenience, it is advisable to do a pre-employment screening to verify a candidate’s history. This will help you make the correct choice and save valuable time and resources. Many applicants may make false claims about their employment, criminal, and even educational history. Therefore, you must do an employment history check and find out who is lying and avoid hiring such people.

You Risk Compromising Workplace Safety‏

‏Your team deserves a healthy and safe working environment. A pre-employment background check can help make this a reality. Research shows that successful pre-employment screening reduces the chances of violence in the workplace.‏ A study done by the U.S Department of Justice indicated that each year about $55 million is lost to workplace violence. The high rate of workplace violence may mean there could be a likelihood that one of your candidates could be responsible for workplace violence in the future. Fortunately, a simple pre-employment history check can help save your business from these troubles. ‏

‏The Issue of Negligent Hiring Liability‏

‏When you are an employer looking for a new hire, it is your responsibility to do a background check before the candidate is hired to uncover as much as possible there is to know about a prospective employee. If there is information that you don’t know, that you should have known, and it turns out to be crucial, you can be held accountable. In more specific terms, we know this as negligent hiring and retention liability.‏

‏Negligent hiring liability not only holds employers responsible for the information they know and don’t know (but should have known) about a candidate, but it also holds them responsible for their employees’ actions away from work, and can even impact the employer after the employee stops working for the employer. Therefore, all employers must exercise caution and conduct proper background checks before a candidate’s hire date, especially when dealing with employees who interact with the public.‏

‏How Does a Pre-Employment Background Check Help?‏

‏A pre-employment history check will help you uncover instances of criminal or dishonest activity. These include previous drug abuse convictions, reckless behavior, theft, or violent activities. With such information at your disposal, you can determine whether an application is suitable for the job. You will also be able to dodge candidates who might threaten the public and other employees.‏

‏You can use many available research tools to run a pre-employment background check before the candidate’s hire date. The tools included:‏

‏Criminal Record Checks‏
‏Prior Employment Verifications‏
‏Education Verification
‏License Verifications ‏

‏These research tools can uncover possible problem areas and serve as proof that you have taken “reasonable care” in the hiring process. These tools are essential, particularly when your employees:‏

‏Have access to customers’ financial, medical, or personal data‏
‏Have access to customers’ homes‏
‏Work with infants and the elderly
‏Handle hazardous materials‏
‏Are responsible for the safety of others‏

‏There are laws that mandate you to exercise caution when hiring individuals. In such instances, a background check is a must.‏

‏You Expose Your Business to Fraud, Hacking, and Cybercrime‏

‏Many business owners are worried about their workers stealing cash and inventory. Theft is a genuine concern. Many studies show that global occupational fraud causes losses of up to $3.7 trillion annually. The losses amount to about 5% of revenues every year. Lost revenue only goes to show the importance of the pre-employment investigation.‏

‏Unfortunately, money and inventory are not the only problems. Business owners should also know the potential risks of cybercrime. Cybercrime can hurt companies across all industries. Data from the Computer Security Institute shows that many ex-employees end up hacking their former employers’ systems. For instance, Verizon attributed about a fifth of their recent breaches to employee misconduct. Since employees have access to sensitive company data, they are the ones who pose the most serious threat to the company and fellow employees and customer information stored on business computers.‏

‏One important way to mitigate such threats is to do a thorough pre-employment screening of every new hire. You must find out and examine work history gaps and why each candidate left their previous jobs. This pre-employment investigation can help you root out the risky individuals and help avoid future problems. Any candidate who has unexplained gaps in their employment history must be questioned. Background screening will help you make a better decision about whether or not you should hire them.

‏Unsafe Hires are a Threat to Your Company’s Reputation‏

‏Every business must maintain a good reputation. The problem of not running a pre-employment history check is that you put your company’s reputation at stake. Each person that you hire could have the potential to ruin your company’s brand image. ‏

‏In 2017, Uber standardized its policy to perform background checks every two years on its drivers. Uber made this policy modification on pre-employment and recurring background checks, in part due to the increase in sexual misconduct allegations. There were scores of Uber drivers who were facing assault and passenger abuse charges. Some of the abuse victims tried to sue Uber for millions of dollars to cover the physical and emotional damages they went through.‏

‏All this led to some people questioning Uber’s reputation and doubting whether they were a safe ridesharing company. By ‏running background checks ‏before a person’s hire date, situations like this can be mitigated.‏ To Uber’s credit, they instituted not only initial pre-employment background checks but also implemented recurring periodic background checks.

‏Conclusion

Do you still think background checks are not that important? By now, you have seen how not running a background check can be harmful to your business in more ways than one. All it takes is one hiring mistake, and everything you have worked for can come tumbling down. If you need help with background checks, contact Reliable Background Screening today. Our team has years of experience helping businesses to do employee background checks. Also, feel free to subscribe to our mailing list to get notified each time we post a similar article.

Posted by: Brett Troisi – Vice President, Reliable Background Screening