The PI Company

The Federal Trade Commission’s has decided to suspend its investigation of Social Intelligence, a year-old start-up that scours social media and Internet sites for dirt on employees and job applicants, as long as it complies with the Fair Credit Reporting Act.   

Its COO, Geoffrey Andrews, says that in a given pool of candidates they screen, there are usually 20% who don’t pop up in an Internet/social media screen (“despite what some media have claimed, we don’t see a no-hit candidate as a negative thing”), 60% have a neutral or positive Internet footprint (“we’ll flag positive things in addition to the negative, such as awards received or an active presence on an industry blog”), and 5-20% of applicants have something negative out there about them. In an executive screen of older candidates, it’s closer to 5%, but in an applicant pool for a lower level of job with younger applicants who are more likely to have an Internet presence, it hits that higher 20%.

So what have they found when doing ongoing monitoring? Mainly fraudulent or criminal activity by employees. One case that Andrews described involved what looked to be retail theft. An employee of a retailer was a major supplier of the store’s goods on auction site eBay.

When companies work with Social Intelligence, it ensures they comply with the FCRA and present applicants with reports on the bad stuff dug up which resulted in their not getting hired. Then applicants can challenge the legitimacy of the info (just as they can with a credit check) or know what’s out there that’s hurting their employment prospects. Andrews said they haven’t had an applicant yet challenge one of their reports.

The Good - A hiring manager could say that they were glad they discovered that Johnny the master of the great resume also drank heavily every night and posted all his parties on Facebook – so they could avoid hiring him.

The Bad - The other side of the  argument has been that if someone is functional, professional and sober at work, then why is it fair to factor in what they do outside of work when deciding if you should schedule an interview? As long as they are not a violent criminal or addicted to hard drugs, who cares?

The Ugly - What if your Facebook activity (i.e. the pieces of your personal life that you choseto post) doesn’t jive with the individual hiring manager, regardless if your amazing at your job, it’s a good fit, and everything else matches up.  But what if said hiring manager, who maybe didn’t drink alcohol, had a bad experience with some jerk in Cabo who drank too much tequila at a club and picked a fight with him unprovoked while he was on his honeymoon? All of a sudden that photo of you sharing a pitcher of margaritas on Cinco de Mayo with your buddies bounces you off his short list of contenders

Source: Forbes & ZDNet

• 45% of Employers Now Screen Social Media Profiles
• 35% of employers reported they have found content on social networking sites that caused them not to hire the candidate.
• 53% won’t hire you for Provocative photos and info found
• 44% won’t hire you based on shared content with booze and drugs
• 35% won’t hire you because of bad-mouthing former employers

Is your company using social networking and Web search services to conduct background checks? If so, it might want to review the following information to help safeguard your business.

Social Media Tools for Conducting a Background Check – What to Remember?

1. Using these sources might provide an employer with information relating to an employee being in a protected category (for example, race, religion, age) for which the employer cannot base its employment decisions.
2. Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), an employer cannot use this information, which essentially constitutes a consumer report, without providing written notice to the candidate, obtaining consent and obtaining the information from a credit reporting agency that uses reasonable means to obtain the information and verify its accuracy. Often times, employers have also been known to violate the terms and conditions of social media sites by using the information they obtain for purposes other than as authorized in those terms,” such as using them for hiring decisions.
3. The laws that apply to social media and human resources are the same as what exist in the physical world. However due to the vast amount of publicly accessible data that exists on these sites, the risks are heightened.”

Companies should educate their hiring managers and ensure that social media profiles are addressed in a policy. A social media policy should cover what is allowed by employees on company time as well as what human resources and hiring managers can and can’t do in terms of social media searches.

A survey released by SHRM in January 2010 – “Background Checking: Conducting Criminal Background Checks SHRM Poll” – documented how employers used the information from criminal background checks and followed U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) guidance on avoiding discrimination. The poll found:

• 73 percent of employers conducted criminal background checks on all job applicants while 19 percent of employers conducted criminal background checks on selected job applicants.
• 78 percent of employers conducted criminal background checks on job applicants with fiduciary and financial responsibility, 68 percent of employers conducted criminal background checks job applicants who would have access to highly confidential employee information, and 55 percent conducted criminal background checks on job applicants for senior executive positions.
• 61 percent of employers conducted criminal background checks on job applicants to ensure a safe work environment for employees, 55 percent of employers conducted criminal background checks on job applicants to reduce legal liability for negligent hiring, and 39 percent of employers conducted criminal background checks on job applicants to reduce or prevent theft or other criminal activity.
• 63 percent of employers offered job applicants an opportunity to explain the circumstances when adverse information was found before the job decision to hire or not to hire was made.
• 20 percent of employers conducted criminal background checks on job applicants because they were required to do so by law. Some federal and state laws and local ordinances require employers to conduct criminal background checks for positions including day care workers, health care providers, teachers, coaches, and police.

In addition, the SHRM survey findings were consistent with EEOC guidance that employers may lawfully make hiring decisions based upon the prior criminal offenses of job applicants if they take into account factors including the nature of the offense, the age of the offense, and the relationship of the offense to the job. The SHRM survey found:

• 97 percent of employers considered the severity of the criminal activity when making a hiring decision.
• 95 percent of employers considered the number of convictions when making a hiring decision.
• 95 percent of employers considered the length of time since the criminal activity when making a hiring decision.
• 93 percent of employers considered the relevance of the criminal activity to the position.

The research SHRM conducted in 2006 and 2010 also did not show an increase in the use of criminal background checks by employers on job applicants, as the 2006 SHRM survey “Weapons in the Workplace” found that 96 percent of respondents conducted criminal background checks.

Sources: Tom Ahearn, ESR News Editor

Here is a checklist of items to help employers safeguard the workplace and follow the law!

The 3 P’s

The 3 P’s should be viewed as living documents to be updated as requirements change, or laws affecting tenant selection are updated or amended.

Policy – A policy is a general statement of a principle according to which an organization performs business functions. An organization does not need to maintain policies in order to operate. However, practices and procedures that exist without the underpinnings of a consistent policy are continually in jeopardy of being changed for the wrong reasons, with unintended legal consequences.

Practice – A practice is a general statement of the way the organization implements a policy. Good practices support policy.

Procedure – A procedure documents an established practice. Use of forms is one of the useful ways procedures are documented. For an organization that has a practice of checking past court records for criminal records, the procedures would be the documentation on how it is done, as well as the documents showing it was done.

Role-related risks.

How one company defines risk may be completely different from another. It’s useful to breakdown risks by category.  To give each category a clear rating system on the spectrum of low-risk to high-risk, companies may want to develop a score system that ranks each category according to severity of risk.  Then you can take those risks and look at them against a particular role. Think about that role’s supervision, public access and visibility to the outside world. By way of example, your senior management team is likely to be scrutinized more closely than an entry-level position with a high degree of supervision and no direct public access.

Whats Positive vs What’s Negative?

Companies that have successfully balanced background screening and risk management are those that take the time to truly understand and define the difference between acceptable and unacceptable results.

Once you have a background report in-hand, you should be able to quickly evaluate the results against pre-set criteria to develop an objective “final score” that is derived from the background check results, the risk tolerance of the organization, and the role-related risk.

Consistency

Consistency can be achieved by following your policies and procedures on every applicant or employee.  This will ensure compliance with the FCRA. 

Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/human-resources-articles/how-to-perform-the-background-screening-balancing-act-4184138.html#ixzz1DPUoAkyn

Reason #1. Employment background checks help employers avoid charges of negligent hiring.

The employer has the legal duty of providing reasonable protection to each and every employee while they are at work. Background checks help to alert employers to people who have the potential to harm his or her colleagues.  When an employer decides to forego a pre-employment background check and finds out too late that a mistake has been made in hiring an employee, it could do damage to the workplace environment or injure other employees, as well as destroy the company’s reputation. The information contained in background check should also be complete and accurate, necessitating the use of a professional background search provider.

Reason #2. Employment background checks are done to comply with state and federal laws.

Companies providing services to children, juveniles, and the aged are required to conduct employment background checks. The same rule applies to those working with disabled persons. and employees of health institutions are also required to undergo background checks. Government jobs requiring security clearances also necessitate pre-employment background checks. State agencies and government officials can conduct background checks through the National Crime Information Center of the FBI and obtain information that may not be available to private citizens.

Reason #3. Employment background checks are done to verify the information supplied by employees or job applicants.

Inflating and enhancing educational as well as professional histories are sometimes known to happen, especially when there is tough competition. The employment background check can expose these practices. Background checks can also provide clues to the employee or job applicant’s personality and disposition, aiding in the determination of their suitability for the job. For example, an employer hiring cashiers would be concerned if a background check reveals the applicant to be heavily indebted, indicating financial distress.

Reason #4. The possibility of terrorism and corporate fraud also increases the need for employment background check.

Employers need to be assured that the people they hire do not pose risks to national security, making pre-employment background checks are a necessary process before hiring somebody who will be privy to sensitive information. The exposure of the fraudulent practices of several corporate executives also motivated some companies to include background checks in the recruitment process.

Reason #5: The availability of public records online and the availability of background check service providers have made the employment background check an easy to do.

Though pre-employment background checks can be done by the employer himself, soliciting professional help is still the best way to go. This is because professional providers of background check assure the accuracy and completeness of the reports they provide by using all available public information.

Source: IArticle