Have you considered conducting background checks as part of your hiring process? The practice is fairly typical in the banking and financial services industries, as well as with those who work with children, the elderly, or people with disabilities. If you’re wondering whether you should do so as well, check out our overview of the process below.
Identify the business reason for conducting pre-employment background checksBackground checks add time and expense to the hiring process, and they can create risk, so if you’re thinking about conducting them company-wide or for specific positions, you should have a business reason for doing so. In short, you should know why you
While all terminations carry some inherent risk, there are some best practices that can reduce risk significantly:
DocumentationGood, ongoing documentation is your best defense to any challenge, whether from the employee in the termination meeting, the state unemployment insurance department, the labor department, or opposing counsel in court. Be sure to document behavior and performance issues when they happen, conversations you have, disciplinary actions you take, and warnings to the employee about the consequences if they fail to improve. While there is no exact amount of documentation that will eliminate risk, more is generally better. We recommend that you have enough documentation
Yes. While it’s fine to ask this question during the interview, we recommend you collect this information ahead of time by asking about it on an employment application. In the section where the applicant lists their previous employment experience, you can ask for the reason they left each job. Trends you notice may be cause for follow-up questions during the interview or a reason not to schedule an interview at all.
If you ask about previous or current employment during the interview, be mindful of the direction the response goes. As with any interview question, you should redirect the candidate if they start to share sensitive information. For example, if a candidate says they left pa
It’s not uncommon for organizations to have a policy against rehiring former employees. This sort of policy makes perfect sense with respect to troublemakers, poor performers, or others who left under a dark cloud. It’s also understandable given that companies invest a lot of money training and developing their people, and employees who go elsewhere take that investment with them, sometimes to a competitor.
But times have changed, and expectations with them. Few employers these days expect employees to stick around for many years. Most know that employees will move between employers multiple times over the course of their career and that many of them will even change careers entirel
You may conduct a background check for this job even though you haven’t done one for others. You can elect to run a background check on only certain positions based on the nature of a position, but you'll want to be consistent for all individuals in a specific position. if you only ran a check on this candidate, that could certainly appear discriminatory. Additionally, as a best practice, we recommend that background checks be done after a conditional offer of employment has been made.
In this case, it would be logical to look for and consider DUIs, traffic tickets, and any convictions related to the work the candidate would do for you. We would recommend, however, against making a hir
Managers are doing a good job when both the teams they lead and the individuals they manage are thriving.
Simply stated, teams thrive when they consistently deliver quality products or services while staying within budget. Individual team members thrive when they’re advancing in their careers, learning new skills, showing initiative, taking on additional responsibilities, getting promoted, and adding value to the company.
If a team is getting its work done, but the individuals on that team are not developing professionally, then the manager in charge of that team may not managing as well as they could be. Perhaps they aren’t coaching employees, clearly outlining expect
The Department of Labor has announced the final rule that will increase the minimum salary for certain exempt white collar employees. The final rule is very close to the proposed rule we reported on in March. The new minimums will take effect January 1, 2020.
Exempt Executive, Administrative, Professional, and Computer Employees (EAP)Salaried exempt EAP employees must be paid at least $684 per week on a salary basis (an increase from the current minimum of $455 per week). This is the equivalent of $35,568 per year.
Up to 10% of this minimum may come from non-discretionary bonuses, incentive payments, and commissions (collectively, “incent
Lots of HR leaders today are talking about the importance of using marketing techniques to build an effective employer brand. The topic was a focus in several sessions at the latest annual Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) conference.
What is an employer brand? To answer that question, it may be helpful to go over what a brand is in general. A brand is a name, image, or some other feature that distinguishes your products and services from those offered by others.
Branding may sound simple, but as any marketing team can tell you, a lot of thought and work goes into it, and the difference between success and failure couldn’t be starker. If you call to mind successfu
The Department of Labor has announced the new minimum salary for certain exempt white collar employees. The final rule is very close to the proposed rule we reported on in March. The new minimums will take effect January 1, 2020.
Exempt Executive, Administrative, Professional and Computer Employees (EAP)Salaried exempt EAP employees must be paid at least $684 per week on a salary basis (an increase from the current minimum of $455 per week). This is the equivalent of $35,568 per year.
Up to 10% of this minimum may come from non-discretionary bonuses, incentive payments, and commissions (collectively, “incentive pay”), so long as these payments are received on at least an annual ba
If an employer requires attendance at a training, then it generally must be paid. While this training may often be directed because of a state law, it is ultimately an employer-directed activity.
Department of Labor guidance is that trainings and work events can only be non-work time (unpaid under the Fair Labor Standards Act) if all four of the following criteria are met:
The training occurs outside of the employee's normal work hours;The training is completely voluntary (there will be no company-initiated consequences if the employee does not attend);The training is not specifically job-related (it may be tangentially related to their job, such as most continuing education
