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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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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The criminal records of some juveniles could become public record under legislation passed by a Senate committee. Jefferson Parish Sheriff Newell Norman said parents and school officials are often at a disadvantage, not knowing the history of juvenile delinquents in their neighborhoods and schools.

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Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, schools and schoolyards are enticing places for sexual predators. The combination of a large, moving target population and unique security issues gives sexual offenders the feeling of easy pickings. Today, keeping children safe from sexual predators is one of the top concerns of school officials, students, and parents. Read more…

What would you do if an employee made a comment like this one? “I started to grab her by the throat and choke her, until the top part of her head popped off.Then I was going to step on her throat and pluck her bozo hairdo bald. Strand by strand….”

Believe it or not this was from a real threat assesment performed by the FBI in response to a problem employee. Take a look at the provided PDF file called Workplace Violence Issues in Response.

Prompted by an article written by “The Lisa” over at Bruce Clay’s blog entitled “Your Boss Is Not Your Friend”. I wanted to address the issue of conducting social media background checks. In my opinion they do not comply with the FCRA, the governing document of employment screening within the United States. So what do we do if we happen to come across some potentially damaging information about a potential employee, ignore it? What if you were to find out that your employee was secretly planting false information about you, your company or its executives online? If that employee is already working for you then I think you may have grounds for dismissal, but if you are thinking of hiring them can you use this information per the FCRA in a hiring decision? More and more companies are doing so. People have to realize that everything you publish to the interent is being crawled by search engine spiders. That information is in the public domain and usually rather easily accesible. Posting your political views, rants about your job or pictures of you cutting loose on the weekend may not be using your best judgement.

Over the weekend I found a great School Violence Resource.
They have some great resources for parents, students and even the schools themselves. If you are concerned about school safety please head on over and take a look. They even have a forum where you can disccuss the Virginia Tech Shootings as well as general school safety issues.

All day care facilities must now conduct an expensive two part background check on all employees. The check will cost $50.00 and include two parts. Read more…