Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/227268
Cover Story sharing. We put a lot of time and effort to make sure the hiring process is extremely smooth and accurate." Frito-Lay's background screening provider is Atlanta-based First Advantage, which provides a technology solution that integrates with Frito-Lay's ATS. First Advantage prides itself on its invisibility to job candidates. "We realize we represent the employment brand of our customers," says Bill Franck, First Advantage executive vice president and client portfolio manager. "Every candidate is a potential employee, and his or her experiences are directly related to their first interactions with the hiring organization. We want these to be positive experiences. We want them to feel they are being treated as human beings. This is the right thing to do and it also is of great value to the employer's recruitment objectives." Such experiences have not always been the case with background screening. Slip-ups were not infrequent in the past, particularly cases where people have common last names like Johnson or Smith. No one wants to be accused of another's crime or of having presented inaccurate educational criteria. "A common mistake is a father and son with the same name, albeit missing the Jr. and Sr.," Franck notes. "The son is right out of college with a stellar future ahead of him, but his father had trouble with the law in past. Meanwhile, their address is the same. If the background screener does not use multiple record identifiers, accuracy can be a problem." To minimize the possibility of error, employee screening provider Orange Tree leverages identifiers provided by the applicant or developed through the screening process (like a date of birth, middle names and initials, name suffix, AKAs and current and former addresses). Says Heidi Seaton, vice president of operations and compliance for the Minneapolisbased company, "Our priority is to confirm a potential record really is a match to the applicant before we would report it to an employer." Checks and Balances Organizations mitigate risk through background screening to avoid hiring an employee with a criminal past or a range of fictitious accomplishments. And it's warranted. According to the ADP Annual Screening Index, 41 percent of employment, education and/or credential reference checks revealed a difference of information between what the applicant provided and what the source reported. Two-thirds of all job applicants in another study say they have stretched the truth at least once in an effort to land a job. And more than a few job applicants have been able to hide criminal pasts. "The reality of the industry is that although some employers and schools do store historical verification information by social security number, the majority of county court systems do not," says Seaton. "A thorough criminal search (is required) to assure that a criminal record really does belong to an applicant before we report that record to an employer." Hiring the wrong employee is dangerous and expensive. Workplace violence accounts for 18 percent of all violent crime, according to one study, and, of the 4,547 fatal workplace injuries that occurred in the United States in 2010, 506 were workplace homicides, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports. Background screening is a vital part of the employment process, one that, if done well, can result in superior talent acquisition at lower cost. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, for every dollar an employer invests in employment screening, the return on this investment ranges between $5 and $16, resulting from improved productivity, reduced absenteeism, lower turnover, and decreased employer liability. With regard to the cost, the U.S. Department of Labor finds that the average employer expense for a bad hiring decision can equal 30 percent of the employee's first-year income. Nearly 80 percent of worker turnover problems are linked to poor hiring decisions, and the longer that wrong employees stay on the job, the more it will cost to replace them. These sobering facts explain the vital necessity of assuring the most accurate background checks possible. At the same time, it is equally important that the job candidate not feel like he or she is being unfairly judged or singled out because of an overly burdensome screening process. For employers, this can be a Solomon-like exercise, given the various laws and regulations governing employment practices. "With the EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) and FCRA (Fair Credit Reporting Act) regulations, in addition to similar state rules, we need to ensure for our clients that we're in complete compliance, so nothing pops up to affect their employment brand," says Brandon Phillips, president and CEO of Global HR Research, NOVEMBER 2013 | www.hrotoday.com [11]