Is It Right To Perform Background Checks on Your Employees?

A lot of people feel a bit iffy about having a background check performed on them.

Even if you haven’t done anything wrong and you don’t have a criminal record, it can still feel a little bad if you find out that someone has run a background check on you. However, it’s usually important to do things like this from a business standpoint because you don’t want to hire someone that could potentially be a problem for your business.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with hiring someone even if they do have a concerning background. After all, there are plenty of people who have once been to prison or committed serious crimes, who have reformed themselves and were able to integrate back into society. This isn’t uncommon and there are programs to support these kinds of people who are willing to go the extra mile to live a normal lifestyle.

But what about you? Are you thinking about performing background checks on your employees? Do you suspect that one of your new potential recruits could have a shady history? If you’re a little on the fence about performing a background check, then here’s some advice to help you out.

Why Are People Hesitant About Performing Background Checks?

It’s worth mentioning that not all companies are hesitant to perform background checks. Many large companies and corporations do this without hesitation because they know the dangers of hiring someone that isn’t a right fit for the job. No company wants to risk hiring an employee that could be a problem in the future, even if the chances of that happening are incredibly slim.

But it’s not the same for smaller businesses and startups.

It’s fairly common for a new entrepreneur to have emotions tied to their hiring process. After all, you’re probably never going to forget the very first person you hired, and you might even feel appreciative of them applying to your startup or small business. After all, you don’t want to invade their privacy and you probably don’t want to learn about the private things in their life. That’s for them to know and for you to not question. At least, that’s how most people feel.

Why it’s Important to Perform Background Checks?

There are important reasons for why you should perform a background check, but we’re going to cover three of the most important ones:

• You should determine if someone is a good fit for the job. Even if you’re a startup, there are good and bad candidates for a job–and it’s your task to determine if someone is a good fit or not. Most of them, this is going to involve a quick background check to see what kind of experience they have.

• You need to protect your own business and employees. Imagine if your boss hired someone with a shady past and put them on your team. Most people are going to be concerned about it, especially if they were convinced of a crime like assault. You have a right to know about your coworkers, hence why it’s important to perform background checks on employees to ensure your team is safe and protected at all times.

• You have to protect customers too. Your customers should also have peace of mind knowing that they’re always in safe hands. The last thing they want is for a convicted criminal to handle their precious goods or money, as it could make them feel really uncomfortable even if that person has been fully reformed.

Unfortunately, there’s a huge stigma against anyone who has a criminal record. This is something that we can’t avoid as a society. But that’s not to say that people with a bad record can’t be hired.

Important Things to Consider While Hiring People that Have Poor Pecords

There are a couple of things that you should do when considering someone that has a poor record.

First, make sure you investigate them properly with a professional service like Bond Rees investigations. Don’t carry out an investigation by yourself if you’re not trained to do so. Let someone else handle it and tell them what kind of results you want. This will produce plenty of information that you can use to make an informed decision.

Next, make sure you provide enough employee training to help them fit into the job. Everyone deserves a chance, so you should facilitate this by encouraging your new recruits to develop new skills in order to provide more value to your business. Don’t let their lack of experience or poor track record deter you–as long as you believe in them and invest time into their development, you can turn them into valuable hard-working individuals.

At the end of the day, we should give everyone a chance to build a new career, even if their past isn’t completely clean. And in many cases, this does mean going through formalities such as a background check to learn more about them.