The Importance of Background Screening

Why Conduct Employee Screening?

Any company could find itself in ruin due to the result of hiring the ‘wrong’ individual.  A person with a history of violence, drug or alcohol abuse, driving felonies, sexual assault, theft or any number of other issues could ruin the reputation of a company with one incident.

When anyone asks why companies run background checks, the facts listed below should make it obvious.  Your company must limit, reduce or eliminate its liability, and the only way to do that is to run accurate background checks on prospective employees.

Current Statistics

• The Society for Human Resource Management states 45% of all resumes contain one major fabrication.
• The Wall Street Journal said that 34% of all application forms contain outright lies about experience, education and the ability to perform essential functions of the job.
• College and University registrars report that at least 60% of the verifications they receive contain falsified information.
• The Small Business Administration said that employees at all levels falsify their backgrounds.
• The American Management Association and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said that 30% of all small business failure is caused by employee theft.
• According to the Bureau of National Affairs, from $15-25 billion is lost each year due to employee theft.
• Nearly 2 million workplace violence incidents occur annually, according to U. S. Dept. of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics
• Workplace Violence Research Institute States that lawsuits filed against employers typically result in out of court settlements of $500,000 and jury verdicts of $3,000,000

Benefits to Screening Applicants

• Discourages applicants with something to hide
• Uncovers falsified or "puffed" credentials
• Eliminates uncertainties in the hiring process
• Demonstrates due diligence
• Encourages good applicants to be honest and truthful
• Saves money and time spent in recruiting, hiring and training
• Can help protect against negligent hiring lawsuits
• Reduces chance of injury to employees
• Reduces employee theft
• Reduces turnover
• Reduces workplace violence
• Reduces insurance premiums
• Increases productivity and employee morale

As an HR manager or director, you have an important responsibility.  At Background Info USA, we want to help make your job easier.  We want you to have a full understanding of the process of running background checks.  We’ll help you to perform them, as well as how to interpret the results and how to apply them to your particular situation.

“Each day across the country, the news reports of lawsuits against companies

due to their ‘negligent hiring’ practices.”

Negligent hiring means the employer ‘knew, or should have known’ that a certain individual was unfit to hire for a particular position.  Every day, courts settle on behalf of plaintiffs, awarding thousands, tens to hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars in these lawsuits.

What does that mean to you?  Simply that today running background checks is a must for large, medium and even small companies.

Fact:  Right now, some companies are running background checks that are leaving them misinformed, and they don’t know it. At Background Info USA, it’s our goal to insure you are running the proper background checks necessary for your exact scenario…and that you can easily interpret the reports. 

Close to half of all applicants include false information or misrepresent themselves.  There are frequent omissions.  This can lead to inaccurate or incomplete results.  We not only want to verify information about your applicants, but help you ‘uncover’ information they might not want you to know about.