Episode 108: Why, When, and How to Perform Background Checks

Voice Over: You’re about to listen to another episode of What The Hell Just Happened?! Join Paul Edwards and his guests as they discuss and sometimes even solve some interesting HR problems.

Paul: And… I’m gonna go off the rails sometimes and talk about whatever I want.

Michelle: Hi, Paul.

Paul: Hi, Michelle.

Michelle: How are you doing today?

Paul: I’m doing very good today.

Michelle: Awesome.

Paul: What the hell just happened? Tell me. Ask me.

Michelle: Oh, you know I’m going to tell you.

Paul: Yup.

Michelle: So, background checks.

Paul: Oh, okay.

Michelle: Background checks. Now, there’s a process for these.

Paul: You don’t need to do that.

Michelle: But I want to talk about the interesting aspects of background checks.

Paul: Okay, good.

Michelle: What to do? What to stay away from mainly though, right?

Paul: Okay.

Michelle: Want to keep you safe. But, let’s say, Paul, that an employee comes to you as a business owner and you just hired someone, okay?

Paul: Okay.

Michelle: And they say, “Hey, you know that person you just hired for the front desk, I heard that they have a criminal history.”

Paul: Okay. So, I’m the employer. I just hired someone and one of my other employees comes over and says, “I have some stuff I got to tell you.”

Michelle: Yup.

Paul: Okay.

Michelle: Yup. How do you handle that?

Paul: Well, okay. Oh, there’s so much guidance around this.

[Michelle laughs]

Michelle: There is. This is actually a situation that I just saw float through the Solution Center and it was a tricky one.

Paul: It comes through all the time. Okay, so look, I’m going to use two, I’m going to kind of use a cut and dry. I’m going to give everybody the kind of the dry version of this.

Michelle: Let’s go.

Paul: Alright. So, start with the dry version. Just talk about background checks, in general. First of all, please do them. I have stories. I have a lot of stories. It’s very common. I used to get this all the time. “Hey, Paul.” So, it’s in an email to me or a text or a phone call or message. “I hired this new person and I heard some stuff and I decided to do a quick background check on him and you won’t believe what I found out.” And, in one of these cases, we’re talking about someone who had embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars from multiple practices…

Michelle: Oh boy.

Paul: …had gone to prison for it, had successfully brought a case before the state’s Supreme Court about their case on their own without an attorney.

[Michelle laughs]

Paul: And then ended up in another state, because they had been forbidden when they were on parole from ever, and they were actually in someone else’s office and they were still using their name…

Michelle: Wow.

Paul: …their own name… So, they would’ve, if anybody had done a background check, that would have been discoverable.

Michelle: Oh, definitely and that’s why it’s important, right?

Paul: So, do a background check.

[Michelle laughs]

Paul: Alright. So, in background checks, you can background check for all kinds of different things, right?

Michelle: Yeah!

Paul: So, we’re still on the kind of dry thing. When someone gets hired, you can check for criminal history. By the way, there is no national database but there can be a national search by a company that does background checks. So, that’s our next thing, I guess, right, Michelle? Use a company, don’t do it yourself.

Michelle: Exactly. Ooh, that’s a fun one. We could go on a tangent all day about one, right?

Paul: We’ll get back to it.

Michelle: We will.

Paul: We’ll get back to it.

Michelle: Because that’s a very good point but, really, this boiled down to when to do it. Are you objectively basing, you know, your action?

Paul: Yeah.

Michelle: Are you being consistent with your action?

Paul: Yeah.

Michelle: There’s a lot of questions that we’re going to ask someone in that situation.

Paul: Right.

Michelle: I’m not going to walk through all the detailed guidance I gave this individual but we need to talk about those basics, right Paul?

Paul: Part of the part of the problem was is they’re already hired. So, you presented a new, they gave us a new twist. And it’s much more difficult to run a background check after someone… to do it legally…

Michelle: Yes.

Paul: …after someone has started working for you.

Michelle: Exactly.

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If you have an HR issue or a question you’d like us to discuss on this show, send it to podcast@WTHjusthappened.com. For more HR advice and insights from Paul and his team of experts, you can also join the private Facebook group, HR Base Camp, or visit HRbasecamp.com. Make sure you tune in next week. And remember: better workplaces make better lives.