Workplace safety has become a primary concern for employers around the country. It seems that every day there’s another incident of workplace violence committed by current or former employees who have a grudge or a mental issue that was not known or fully understood by the employer. In many cases, the person committing the crime had a history of anger issues or other mental challenges that may have foretold the crime.
Employers today must do all they can to protect their employees and businesses from incidents of violence. This means taking extra steps when you hire employees to be sure you know exactly who you are hiring and what their actions and behavior has been in the past. One key tool for employers to create a safe work environment is to conduct free background checks on all new employees. This along with other strategies can provide safety information about any new hires.
Why Employers Should Conduct a Criminal Background Check
Some companies are required by the federal and state governments to conduct criminal background checks on their employees. Many of these companies perform the most important or critical jobs. They include security firms, hospitals, the government, and those companies that interact with the government in high security areas.
The reasons that these companies need to do criminal background checks is because they understand that they must have a clear understanding of the people they hire and what they have done in their past. This knowledge can often help them avoid problems in the future. More companies today are finding that in order to ensure the safety of their employees and their businesses they must perform background checks on those they seek to hire.
Today doing a criminal background check is simple. If someone has been in trouble with the law on either a federal or state level there are services online like this page that pull all of information together and make it available to employers. They provide information on the crime, the circumstances, when is occurred and the sentence. They also let the employer know if the person is currently on probation or other some other type of disciplinary sentence. Employers can view this information from a computer, tablet or mobile phone at the office or at home.
Armed with this information assists employers in hiring and understanding who they are interviewing. They can then make an informed decision about whether the person is appropriate for the job or is even legally eligible for the job.
Why New Employers Should Call Former Employers
When employers seek to hire new employees they ask for references from former employers. The idea is that these former employers will give good reports about the potential employee putting the new employer at ease. This is a great practice, but too often new employers do not actually call the former employers to get feedback on te hire. The assumption is that if the potential hire gave the reference then of course that person will say good things, so why even make the call. The call is very important because a former employer can give detailed information about the potential hire. Was he or she prompt? Were they able to take direction well from superiors? Why did they leave the former job? Were that any issues that affected their job performance? How would they rate the employee as a worker? The totality of this info paints a complete picture of the employee and gives you a better understanding of who they are and what you can expect from them if they join your company.