Background Checks for Small Businesses

Managing your human resources department as a small business owner introduces even more responsibilities to your already diligent work schedule. Tasks like recruiting, scheduling interviews, managing employee concerns, and maintaining standard HR policies can be incredibly time consuming. One aspect you do not want to overlook however, is the process of employee screening before hiring.

As mentioned before, failing to conduct background checks can be costly to your business for a variety of reasons. As a small business owner, making these mistakes could result in your business failing as a whole. Being faced with complications like negligent hiring claims, unintelligible details as to what information you access of a potential employee, or violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act in general are typically things that can be handled well by larger corporations. However, for entrepreneurs just joining the business world, a negative claim of any sort can prevent their ideas from ever leaving the ground.

Within small businesses, the relationships between employees and their employer can develop quickly, forming a tight-knit bond with a sense of trust, and dependency. Taking that into consideration, poor hiring decisions can have a much more drastic effect on the company. Running background checks on potential employees can ensure their effectiveness, values, and history as an employee, upon which you can decide whether or not they are a good fit for your small business. After that, screening employees during interviews gives you insight to their character. Further evaluation of potential team members can allow you to better judge how well they will work or get along with your already small staff.

Before hiring an employee, many small business owners rely on just an applicant’s resume and interviewing skills due to the fact that background checks can, at times, take longer than anticipated. Additionally, small business managers may see pre-employment screening as an expendable task that will save money and resources. Those who to do so tend to rely on social media or search results on the internet when making their hiring decisions. Not only can this give inaccurate information, but federal and state laws are set in place to prevent some employers from doing this altogether. These laws were established to prevent both legal and ethical problems, and we, as a third-party screening company, can provide the information you are seeking without violating the privacy of the candidate.

For small business owners who choose to implement background checks upon hiring new employees, a number of considerations should be taken into account. Be sure to establish a hiring and screening policy, clearly laid out within the job description for applicants. Through this, it is important to ensure accurate data, which you can accomplish by allowing the applicants to apply through an online portal, giving security and confidence throughout the process.