Regardless of the type of business you own, holding a job should never mean an employee is in danger from violent customers. Unfortunately, this is not always the case– far too frequently an employee is in the position of facing serious bodily injury or even worse from a customer who is out of control. There are some measures which you can take in advance to protect your employees.

One absolutely essential factor in promoting the safety of your employees is for them to have consistent emergency access readily available at all times. While something as basic as an easily-accessible 911 phone line is standard in many companies, many others do not have it. In the interest of their lives and safety, this should be available to all employees when they are in the workplace. Read more…

While Beacon Plumbing & Mechanical, Inc claims that it runs criminal background checks on all of its employees, what they do not state is if they use a database or conduct the proper due diligence by conducting a county search on each of the residential addresses associated with the applicants. It is important to know and understand the difference between running a database search on an applicant, and checking the county courts. A database can contain millions of records of felons, however, this data is often times arbitrary, and it is very limited in county records.

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Another reason why conducting inferior background checks or none at all create huge risks for employers. Yet I still run across some employers who think they don’t need to screen employees. Then there are those who think a eight or ten dollar database check is sufficient. Well tell that to the jury!

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It is always a great idea to conduct a background check on an employee, especially one who is going to work around children, as in the case of an Ice Cream Truck driver. This story indicates that the Bureau of Criminal Identification will conduct a check for $20-$30.00, however, be warned that their database is flawed. Not every county in Ohio reports to BCI. It is recommended that you conduct a residential history of the applicant and contact every county they have resided in to determine any crimes. In addition, you should conduct a nationwide sexual offender search through the Department of Justice.

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While it is possible for FBI checks to be inaccurate, its highly unlikely in this case. The common inaccuracies with the FBI check is that it does not have a comprehensive coverage with respect to jurisdictions. The FBI gets its data from law enforcement agencies and state criminal record repositories. These sources only represent about 65% of all records available. The records are often just arrests and do not contain updates on the court case. If the case has been dismissed it is possible they have the right person but the wrong information. The FBI uses a fingerprint to match identity so as for a case of mistaken identity its unlikely in this case.

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No really, free. No singing pirates or crappy cars, just a true free credit report. Everyone is entitled to a copy of their credit report otherwise known as a credit file disclosure. A credit report, provides you with all of the information in your credit file maintained by a consumer reporting company that could be provided by the consumer reporting company in a consumer report about you to a third party, such as a lender. This is the official site to obtain your report so go and take a look and see what is on your file, it just may surprise you. Go to AnnualCreditReport.com.

I believe that North Dakota is behind the times by not requiring background checks for their employees. While it is not mandatory, I certainly hope that each school district across the state will conduct their due diligence and use background checks as a part of the hiring process.
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How do hackers grab your personal data out of thin air? Agent Peterson said one of the most common types of attack is this: a bogus but legitimate-looking Wi-Fi network with a strong signal is strategically set up in a known hot spot…and the hacker waits for nearby laptops to connect to it. At that point, your computer—and all your sensitive information, including user ID, passwords, credit card numbers, etc.—basically belongs to the hacker. The intruder can mine your computer for valuable data, direct you to phony webpages that look like ones you frequent, and record your every keystroke.

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In this very interesting article, you find out that in Iowa, you can become a judge without getting a background check conducted on yourself. If you want to work at the local store, a background check is required, but if you want to sit on the bench and judge others, you do not have to submit to a background check. I think that is a flaw in the system that led to possible fraud.

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In almost every area of business, security guards are required to have background checks. This article points out that the 50,000 + unarmed security guards who are placed in high sensitive areas are not being screened. It is the contract company’s responsibility to get their guards screened.

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