Who Are You?

Last updated Saturday, August 25, 2007 11:15 PM CDT in Business

By Tara Muck
THE MORNING NEWS

RISK MANAGEMENT

At First National Bank in Fort Smith, Brenda Aaron conducts full background checks on potential hires.

"Actually, the FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.) wants us to do that," said Aaron, branch administrator and vice president of human resources. "That's something that banks are supposed to do. But some do; some don't."

The extent of the checks comes from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. guidelines on pre-employment screening, Aaron said. First National Bank conducts credit and criminal history checks, along with drug testing on future employees.

"It's long and involved," Aaron said. "It's saying that we have to have a risk assessment to hiring people. The FDIC doesn't want people who have anything that could be risky."

Credit checks have long been used by banks or anywhere people may be dealing with accounts or cash. The idea is if someone has a lot of credit issues, there's a potential for embezzlement, said Jon Woodham, human resources assistant with SPMI in Van Buren and president elect of the Western Arkansas Human Resources Association.

"People are using that against hiring people," he said. "You got two equal people and one has a better credit history, then that could be a deciding factor."

But it's not as simple as that, Woodham added. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has put out guidelines that must make that decision justified. Medical bills causing credit problems could be viewed as less of a red flag than missing car or mortgage payments.

"Not necessarily fair, but it could be an indicator," Woodham said.

And if theft does happen, companies have to be careful to not sweep those problems under the rug.

If a company has a person who steals or embezzles from them and they find out that the employee has done it before at a previous company but was never reported, that first employer could be held liable for negligent hiring, Woodham said.

If the first employer would have pressed charges and the second employer did a background check, it could have prevented them from hiring that person.

HEALTH CARE CLEARANCE

The importance of conducting background checks on those who work in the medical field goes beyond protection of the company but also that of the patients and families, said Greg Russell, director of Sparks Health System marketing and communications.

"It's important to provide a safe environment for people to receive their care," Russell said. "We're dealing with patients and families at basically their most vulnerable point when they're dealing with an illness or injury."

When an individual applies for a certain job requiring licenses, those are checked out and verified, as well as a check with the Office of Inspector General, Russell said. The inspector general will have any information regarding a possible bad track record such as bad behavior or sanctions on file.

A criminal history check is also conducted on an individual at the state and county level in every place the person has lived. It's not to say someone with something on their record is automatically disqualified, Russell said, but it's taken on a case-by-case basis.

"There are some things that are no-brainers, for a lack of a better term," he said.

The hospital hires an outside vendor to conduct many of the checks because of the nearly 2,200 employees Sparks Health System has.

Having the ability to pre-screen individuals has been an invaluable asset to the medical community, Russell said, "Cause we would like to think that everyone's going to be honest, but many years of experience has told us otherwise."

BEHIND THE WHEEL

Trucking companies also go through several background checks before hiring a driver, said Chris Kozak, president of Willis Shaw Logistics LLC in Elm Springs. Putting a driver on the road means making sure they're trusted to drive down the highway behind the wheel of 80,000 pounds.

While a criminal background check is conducted, many companies have their own policies on hiring convicted felons, Kozak said.

The Department of Transportation has regulations for individuals to receive their commercial drivers license (CDL) to drive a truck. Physical qualifications of drivers are spelled out by the DOT to ensure safety of the driver and other motorists. According to the DOT Web site, a medical examination takes note of almost all parts of the body, including the heart, eyes, extremities, lungs and ears. If a driver is diabetic and requires insulin, they are not qualified to operate a commercial motor vehicle.

Another important step is drug and alcohol testing, Kozak said. While it's mandated by the DOT, sometimes its hard to get all the information on a potential driver in a timely manner.

"The Commercial Driver Alcohol and Drug Testing Act" was submitted and passed by the Arkansas Legislature earlier this year requiring companies to report certain alcohol or drug test results of an employee with a CDL and also requiring an employer to obtain a report from the Commercial Driver Alcohol and Drug Testing Database. Kozak said this process would eliminate all the paperwork involved in tracking down the results from a previous employer and help improve driver safety.

"What you want to do is make sure no one slips through the cracks in alcohol and drug testing," Kozak said. "So what the Arkansas Trucking Association has done is gone to a database type-arrangement. And I think the whole country should be on that."

REFERENCE CHECKS

Reference checks are also important, and recent law changes have allowed companies to open up more about their previous employees. But still, many employers will only want to verify employment and dates and may not want to go into detail as to why a person left.

"There's a situation where they don't want to be sued for telling them something," Woodham said. "Basically, we follow the same rule of thumb: If it's in their personnel file, we can disclose it."

And usually that personnel file contains an authorization by the employer that can make it accessible to future employers who seek out further information.

Don Marr, a human resources consultant and president of HR Factor in Bentonville and Fayetteville, said the Arkansas Society of Human Resources Management worked with the Arkansas Legislature to pass the reference checking bill in 2003 to protect companies when releasing references to potential employers.

The code says that the company may release, with written consent, date and duration of employment; job description and duties; last written performance evaluation; attendance information; drug test results within past year; any threatening behavior toward other employees; nature of the separation from employer and whether it was voluntary or not; and if the employee is eligible for rehire.

"Most employers want as much information on a person they're evaluating to hire," Marr said. "The great thing about reference checking is past performance is the best indicator of future performance."

HONEST POLICY

Woodham said the most common problems found in resumes are employment dates and education or work experience.

The Internet and other technology has made it easier to produce a number of fake documents, including degrees and licenses. Hicklin said her company has caught many people who said they had a degree from a certain school, but in reality they only attended, never graduated. Also, she's found discrepancies in grade point average, where someone said they had a 3.8 GPA but really had a 2.8 GPA in college.

When it comes to salary, if WorkSource can't get verification from the employer, they'll ask to see a W-2 from that job.

Sometimes a discrepancy in a resume is just a situation where the individual worded it in a way that was misinterpreted, Hicklin said. If they determine it was on purpose, that person doesn't get a chance to correct it and will be turned away.

But honesty really does prove to be the best policy when it comes to applying for jobs.

Employment dates are often manipulated to cover employment gaps, Woodham said. But if a person can explain why they haven't been working, it's not necessarily damaging. Some industries go through different layoffs, or a person could have been attending school during that time.

However, having background checks can help alleviate that concern.

"(Applicants) tell us they were taking care of a sick relative, but they were really in the pen," Hicklin said. "It's definitely something our clients see as being very beneficial."

TROOPER SERVICES

Criminal background checks have become so widely used that a new Arkansas state law was passed earlier this year to provide quicker access to the information. On July 31, the Arkansas State Police Online Criminal Background Check System became available to third parties and service providers to conduct criminal background checks with consent of the subject, according to a news release.

"It's really the caveat of all background checks for the department," said Bill Sadler, public information officer for the Arkansas State Police.

The Arkansas State Police uses the same system when they hire in the department, Sadler said. Also, Arkansas statute requires that all data has to be stored and administered through the state police identification bureau, so information from all counties are available online.

However, there are stipulations to the online system. Only landlords, financial institutions, staffing agencies, law firms and investigative companies can have access to the criminal history, the press release stated. And it has to be done with the subjects written consent.

But that doesn't mean no one can look up legal documents. Anyone can check court records under the Freedom of Information Act, but they have to search through dockets and know what they're looking for, Sadler warned.

A bulk of the online check, but a consent still must be sent in to the Arkansas State Police.

There's a cost of $75 per year for the service through the Information Network of Arkansas. Prices of individual reports depend on the type. For a criminal background check, it's $22 per search, $20 for state-mandated agencies and $11 for volunteer positions. Other searches can be conducted on accident reports, liens, inmate database, sex offender database and Workers' Compensation Commission claims.

Sadler said the service was available for the respective parties to retrieve the background checks, but they had to be done in person, which took several weeks to conduct.

Right now the system only gathers information from the state of Arkansas, but by the end of the year, it will expand to include FBI fingerprint scanning electronically, which will help speed up the process even more, Sadler said.

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