Do Your Employees have Access to
Residences and Living Quarters?
Employers whose employees have access to residences and living quarters have a moral and legal obligation to ensure a safe environment for consumers. Knowing whether a potential employee has been involved in criminal or other inappropriate activity (such as drug or other substance abuse, reckless behavior, dishonesty, theft, or dangerous and violent behavior) allows the employer to determine if an applicant is suitable for this type of work environment.
Apartment owners, property management firms, and maintenance and custodial companies are just a few of the employers that face an epidemic of potentially costly problems caused by dishonest and criminal behavior of employees who have access to residences and living quarters.
Maintenance and janitorial workers, employees who will have passkeys, or employees who will be handling confidential consumer information are among those who place their employers at significant risk for negligent hiring liability. Negligent hiring liability holds employers responsible both for what they do know and what they should have known about their employees. It can even hold employers responsible for employees’ actions off the job. Courts have repeatedly upheld the idea that employers have a duty to exercise reasonable care in hiring individuals who, because of the nature of their employment, may pose a threat to the public.
How Do Background Checks Help? All employees (including temps, part-time workers, and contractors) who have access to consumer residences or living quarters should be backgrounded. A background check, or application verification, verifies the information provided by the candidate using independent sources such as criminal and civil court records, prior employer records, educational institution records, and credit or motor vehicle reports.
Twenty to twenty-five percent of all job applications include at lease one major fabrication, and 17 percent of all final candidates have criminal records. These statistics alone should be sobering to any employer who will be giving employees access to residences or living quarters.
While it may seem unfair, the courts have repeatedly found employers responsible for the criminal actions of employees on the job, and, in some cases, off the job. The average award in security (personal safety) negligent hiring cases is more than $1 million. Essentially, the courts see a background check as cheap insurance against repeated criminal actions.
We can help you determine what information may be obtained, how long it takes to gather, and how to get started.
Need Help Deciding Which Searches to Choose?
- For a summary of our suggestions on what should be in a thorough background check, see Comprehensive Background Checks.
- For a complete list of all our searches, see Elements of a Background Check for Employment Screening.
- We are also happy to answer your questions. Just give us a call at 530-346-6626.
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