Blog, Resources
NAPBS Has Evolved Into a Global Organization and Rebranded as the Professional Background Screening Association.
On September 9, the National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS) publicized that its members voted at the 2019 NAPBS Annual Conference in San Antonio, Texas, to approve the association’s rebrand to the Professional Background Screening Association (PBSA).
Established in 2003, PBSA is the only association of its kind and has become the trusted authority for the screening professionals. PBSA was established to promote a high level of ethics and performance standards for the background check industry. This association currently represents over 880 member companies engaged in employment and tenant background screening across the United States.
This rebranding allows for the association to transition fully into a global organization. Currently, the organization has three international chapters and is expanding. The rebrand includes a new logo, branding, and website.
PBSA Member companies are Consumer Reporting Agencies defined under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, and these agencies are regulated by both the Federal Trade Commission and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. SELECTiON.COM® is a proud member of the PBSA.
The PBSA offers a Background Screening Agency Accreditation Program. Its purpose is to achieve excellence through high professional standards, including the adoption of best practices, awareness of legal compliance, and development of rules that protect clients and consumers. SELECTION.COM® is part of this prestigious program as well, and achieving this certification was no easy task.
To become an accredited firm, SELECTiON.COM® had to demonstrate initial and ongoing compliance with the accreditation standards as prepared by the Background Screening Credentialing Council. Compliance is determined through a rigorous review and on-site audits, which are completed by an independent third-party auditor. SELECTION.COM® documented each of the policies and processes required in each area within the standard and demonstrated visible compliance with their policies to the auditor. The program also required SELECTiON.COM® to commit to uphold and deliver the highest level of industry standards in the following critical areas: Information Security, Legal and Compliance, Client Education, Researcher and Data Standards, Verification Services Standards and Business Practices.
Consumer Reporting Agencies (CRAs) like SELECTiON.COM® help provide the country and its citizens with a safer environment in which to live, work, and play. The common goal for CRAs and PBSA is to continue working together to identify best practices and promote the highest ethical standards.
Contact us today to learn more.
This article gives a general overview of the legal matters. However, it is your responsibility to ensure compliance with all the relevant federal, state, and local laws governing this area. SELECTiON.COM® does not provide legal advice, and we always suggest consulting your own legal counsel for all applicant approval matters.
Back to Basics, Blog, Resources
What is E-Verify?
E-Verify is a system that compares data from your Form I-9 and Employment Eligibility Verification to U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Social Security Administration records to validate that employees are approved for work in the United States.
E-Verify is mandatory for federal contractors with contracts containing the Federal Acquisition Regulation E-Verify clause, and some states require the use of E-Verify for employers. Many employers participate voluntarily in E-Verify as a supplement to Form I-9.
Today, E-Verify has over 75,000 registered employers of all sizes with about 1,400 new participating companies every week.
Which states require E-Verify?
Twenty states mandate the use of E-Verify for at least some public and/or private employers:
- Alabama
- Arizona
- Colorado
- Florida
- Georgia
- Idaho
- Indiana
- Louisiana
- Michigan
- Mississippi
- Missouri
- Nebraska
- North Carolina
- Oklahoma
- Pennsylvania
- South Carolina
- Tennessee
- Utah
- Virginia
- West Virginia
When should E-Verify be used? 
E-Verify is only used after an offer of employment has been accepted by the individual applicant.
E-Verify should not be used to pre-screen individuals for employment. E-Verify is not a criminal background check. It is a Human Resources onboarding function used to verify legal eligibility to work.
Once the account has been set up, the E-Verify program must be used on ALL new employees, (Federal Contractors have different regulations).
It cannot be used later than the third business day after the individual has started to work. The employer has three days after the date of hire to verify legal eligibility to work.
For employers to stop using the E-Verify program, they must provide 30 days written notice to the government, per the signed Memorandum of Understanding.
SELECTiON.COM®’s software integration with the federal government’s Employment Verification Program (E-Verify) allows employers to quickly and accurately verify new employees’ legal right to work.
With SELECTiON.COM®, you can manage your work authorization program through Fastrax Select® from start to finish. Our secure services help you to ensure that your workforce is legally authorized to work. Our program improves the efficiency of your Form I-9 employment verification process and the accuracy of your payroll and tax reporting. It also substantially decreases human error in completing Form I-9s.
In turn, it also cost-effectively reduces your exposure to government audits, financial penalties, and negative publicity resulting from non-compliance.
Contact us today to see how SELECTiON.COM® can take your employee onboarding process to the next level.
Blog, Resources
Companies are not all created equal, and for that matter, neither is customer service.
It is estimated that 73 percent of buyers value customer service. It is an essential factor in purchasing services. Customer service is one of the top reasons that a customer will continue doing business with a company after the initial sale. They will return to businesses that make them feel valued.
Customers look for companies that are knowledgeable and can communicate well. It is especially crucial for background screening companies to be timely and keep their clients well-informed.
With background screening companies, customers look for one that can provide a fast turnaround time for their pre-employment screenings. They also need a company that is proactive about updating the customer on screening status.
At SELECTiON.COM® we strive to deliver the best customer service to you, our clients, every day. We believe that the best way possible for this is to house all our services under one roof instead of overseas. Our customers support, verification specialists, and IT departments are in-house and easy to reach.
Customer Support
Our in-house customer support representatives are highly trained and qualified to answer your questions. Customer support representatives at SELECTiON.COM® have a tenure of 7.5 years in the industry. We make each call a priority. Our customer support representatives understand how important it is to listen carefully to not only better understand the needs of our clients, but to also demonstrate to our customer our overwhelming desire to help. Our Five Star team is available from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday, via phone or online chat.
Verification Specialists
Our in-house verification department will help to improve your hiring process workflow by verifying important information for you. They check prior employment, education, and personal references, which currently are almost a necessity with the increased amount of resume falsification in the job market. Our specialists will make the first attempt to reach the previous employer, as provided by the client or applicant, within 24 hours of the order date. Their log notes are up-to-date, and in real-time, so you can always see the exact status of your request. The time it takes for our specialists to complete a verification can differ depending on the circumstances. We pride ourselves on being prepared for any circumstances thrown our way.
Information Technology (IT)
Our in-house IT department can facilitate every need you may have. We have performed integrations with businesses across the country, including but not limited to, Virtus, Taleo, UltiPro, Catholic Mutual Group, etc. These integrations have helped our clients save hundreds of thousands of dollars by streamlining the process. Not only that, but we offer access to our applicant tracking system, which saves a considerable amount of time for many of our clients at no additional cost.
Contact us today to see how SELECTiON.COM® can make a difference in your onboarding process.
NOTE: The contents of this article are not legal advice for your particular situation. You should neither act nor rely upon anything stated in this article without first consulting your legal counsel.
Blog, Resources
You’ve hired a new employee. After sending them a job offer, you run a background check to search for any red flags. Their previous employment, education, and criminal history all come back clear. So you’re done with employee screening now, right? Well, not exactly. To continue to have a safe workplace and for your customer’s safety, it is good practice to rescreen your current employees regularly.
Only eleven percent of companies consistently rescreen their current employees. For the remaining eighty-nine percent, if an employee commits a crime after being hired, then the only way they’re going to find out is when the employee starts missing days for court or disappears altogether when they go to jail. For this reason, many companies are beginning to adopt this rescreening policy.
Bring Issues to Light
Some employers only see it as an added cost to their business, but that is far from the truth. By implementing a policy of checking for criminal records or verifying credentials on an annual or semi-annual basis, employers can save themselves a lot of future time and money due to legal liabilities.
The most convincing reason to rescreen is that it allows employers to keep their workplace safe. The most common issues that come to light in a rescreening are financial problems, revoking of a professional license or recent criminal activity. If these issues weren’t brought into the open through rescreening, then this could lead to severe liabilities for your business. This transparency allows for more trust and a safe workplace.
Quarterly Watch® by SELECTiON.COM® allows employers to re-check their employees, volunteers, or sub-contractors quarterly, to make sure no new criminal activity has occurred since hiring. While most of our clients prefer to re-screen every three months, we also offer the option of annual and semi-annual checks. Quarterly Watch® is an innovative combination of our Search America® national criminal database and background check automation.
Contact us today to add Quarterly Watch® to your company’s background screening process.
NOTE: The contents of this article are not legal advice for your particular situation. You should neither act nor rely upon anything stated in this article without first consulting your legal counsel.
Blog, Resources
Employees are given much responsibility and are essential to running a business. That can also create a significant risk. Employee theft is a big issue that small business owners face in the United States. According to the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), nearly two-thirds of small businesses fall victim to employee theft and forty percent of employee theft is monetary.
Most businesses that do have issues of employee theft will not seek legal action. Only sixteen percent of companies report employee theft to police because companies don’t believe it’s worth their time to pursue it. Large companies may think it’s not worth their trouble, but smaller businesses take a harder hit and can’t risk it. There are many ways to be proactive to stop employee theft before it even happens.
Check Background
Criminal background checks are one way to prevent hiring employees with records of employee theft. While there is no way to protect against employee theft or prevent first-time offenders entirely, the best way to prevent employee theft is to make smart hiring decisions.
Knowing the background of your applicant can be your greatest indicator of the ability to do their job with honesty and integrity. The only way to truly know is to check their criminal and work history for specific incidents that indicate such behavior. By conducting criminal background checks on job candidates, a company can be sure that applicants don’t have any previous record of misusing company property.
Check References
Although criminal background checks will give you valuable information about an applicant’s criminal history, a character reference check is the best way to get others’ perceptions of your applicant. References will give you information on the applicant’s character. This is essential information when making a hiring decision that will reflect on your business and ethical values.
It’s a good idea to consistently look out for any red flags, such as unexplained debt or missing financial records throughout employment.
SELECTiON.COM® will develop a pre-employment and post-employment system to mitigate the risk of employee theft. Our pre-employment background check options along with our Quarterly Watch®, which can be run yearly as well, will help keep you on the right track.
Contact us today to see how SELECTiON.COM® can take your employment background check process to the next level.
NOTE: The contents of this article are not legal advice for your particular situation. You should neither act nor rely upon anything stated in this article without first consulting your legal counsel.
Blog, Resources
With the weather warming up and students finishing up their school year, businesses are starting to hire temporary employees for the summer. These workers are vital to companies where business grows during certain months of the year.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, amusement parks, museums, restaurants, spectator sports, and fitness centers, all experience spikes in employment during the summer. Similarly, jobs in the retail industry rise during the winter.
A seasonal employee is hired for a position that lasts six months or less. Typically, these employees are employed at the same time each year. Many temporary workers are high school or college students with little work experience.
Workplace Safety Concerns
Since these employees don’t always have an employment history to check and are unlikely to have a criminal record, some businesses think it’s safe to slack off background screening for all seasonal hires. However, this is not helpful in the long run. These kinds of blanket policies help keep the door open for criminals and bad employees.
Sometimes seasonal employees have little loyalty to the company, a lack of training and are less supervised, which could lead to unreliable employees, attendance issues, and theft. Even though seasonal employees usually have limited access to company information and facilities, they still can pose safety threats to full-time workers and customers and can have a detrimental effect on the business’s reputation.
An employee is 5.4 times more likely to steal from their company than a customer is. As a result, employee theft alone costs U.S. businesses $50 billion annually. Seasonal workers can be apathetic and may tend to fall into this category more often because they do not have a long-term relationship with the employer.
Being Proactive
Many companies use seasonal hires as a pool of employees to choose from to keep on year-round. Observing performance in-person is a great way to find the staff you’d like to keep on. However, if they didn’t properly screen their summer workers, then they could have missed something as important as a pattern of aggression in the workplace or criminal charges. This kind of behavior could ruin the company’s reputation or cause the loss of customers.
Employers run background checks to protect the safety of their employees and customers. According to a National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS) national survey, 89 percent of employers stated that public safety was the top reason they conduct background checks. Workplace safety is a top concern for employers. If it is compromised, then the employer will be held accountable for it.
Although this isn’t true for most seasonal employees, when it comes to the safety of your workforce and customers, it is better to be proactive.
Use a Third-Party
Outsourcing the responsibility of background checks to a professional screening firm is the right choice. By using a third-party, this allows the experts to provide your potential hire’s criminal record accurately. It also saves the company time, so you don’t have to call past employers and check references. Background screening candidates can help businesses make smart and knowledgeable hiring decisions.
Background screening companies are compliant with the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) regulations and labor laws, and many are accredited with the NAPBS. A right background check partner should provide all the documents you need to stay compliant.
According to an NAPBS national survey, 96 percent of employers run background checks on employees, and only 67 percent of employers surveyed say they screen their part-time employees. Still, be thorough in your employment screening process and run a background check for all employees regardless of the length of employment.
Smart Hiring
It is a huge responsibility to ensure a safe working environment for employees. The best step towards meeting this goal and preventing worker theft is by running background checks on all employees, no matter how long their employment will be. Employers will be protecting their reputation of a safe, secure work environment if they have screened qualified employees. Background checks are the final step to ensure smart hiring and protect employers from possible hidden risks.
Employers will have peace of mind when they know that they are hiring the best candidates. A business’s name is just as important to employers as attracting the most qualified workers. If they want to make sure that they’ve chosen the right person, then running a background check is just as important as the rest of the hiring process.
Contact us today to see how SELECTiON.COM® can take your employment background check process to the next level.
NOTE: The contents of this article are not legal advice for your particular situation. You should neither act nor rely upon anything stated in this article without first consulting your own legal counsel.
