Hiring employees is generally a gamble. One never knows if the individual who applies for employment will truly succeed. Many individuals interview very well. Unfortunately, once on the job, many do not really work out. Even those who reach and surpass the proverbial 90-day probationary period are often not your ideal employee. Yet companies and organizations often keep sub-standard performers employed years after hire, due to the time and expense of conducting a new candidate search and then training another hire.
Business owners and managers, either because of inertia, or taking the path of least resistance, often take the position that the “devil you know” is better than the “devil you don’t.” But is it? If you have not conducted a “best practices” employee background check, you could have a potential time-bomb in your organization.
A “best practices” employee background check typically costs less than one day of wages or salary for that employee. Interestingly, the cost of an employee background check pales in comparison to what companies and organizations pay their employees for every day they work. Employee compensation can easily become thousands or tens of thousands of dollars – even during just the first 90 days – and it will cost significantly higher as each year passes.
By performing “best practices” employee background screening, companies save money by not training and paying employee wages for someone they should have never even hired. People with a dangerous criminal history pose significant threats to any organization. Negligent Hiring and Retention Liability case law is accepted in all states. It means that employers can be held liable for the actions of their employees (and even ex-employees), if it was their employment that created the opportunity for that individual to meet and later harm a customer, or another employee.
Also, the opportunity cost of training an employee is often overlooked. It is not just the employee compensation that must be paid. The time that your other team member(s) take to train the new hire is a real cost. Do not waste company resources and money training someone who never should have been hired, due to their dangerous criminal past. By performing a “best practices” background check, you can at least know that the resources you expend training the new hire have the potential to be a good investment. Should you hire a dangerous criminal without performing a thorough background check, you place your company and your brand at significant risk.
Even without a court trial, viral social media can destroy your company and its brand. The real cost of a bad hire could be millions of dollars – or even the end of your company. By performing a “best practices” background check, you can protect your organization from being found to be negligent, whether you are in a court room, in front of a news reporter, or on social media.
Posted by: Rudy Troisi, President and CEO, Reliable Background Screening
Copyright © 2018, Reliable Background Screening, a Division of Marcett, Inc. All rights reserved.
