One of our customers shared a story with us recently and I thought it would be fitting to share it here on our blog in hopes of helping some of you decide whether or not to purchase background checks for your organization. If you’re on the fence, I think this story is telling of how important it is to use background checks as a pre-employment measure. So, without further ado, let’s get into it.
This particular company, who wishes to go unnamed, has done local highway construction work for many years. They had not previously had any issues with bad employees and at the time were not conducting pre-employment background checks. Being a relatively small company, they worked pretty closely with each other and felt they had a pretty good sense of who they were hiring. However, one day they had an employee that didn’t show up for the job. After several attempts to get in touch with this individual, it came to their attention that he had actually been arrested and taken to jail. This was certainly alarming news, but what shocked them even further was finding out that the individual had a pretty extensive criminal background which included charges for crimes that brought physical and emotional harm to other people.
The owners of the company knew at that moment that they needed to implement preventative measures to avoid such scenarios in the future. After all, they had frequently had their children at the office with their employees and felt that they had put them in harms way by not fully knowing who they had hired. Though they were grateful that no crimes were committed against their children, they realized that such an incident wasn’t outside the realm of possibility. From then on, they began doing background checks on all new hires.
Fortunately for this company, they didn’t have a more serious incident occur. It could have been much worse, and fortunately it didn’t involve any other employees or cause any serious harm or damage. This just goes to show that you never know who a person really is and it’s important to understand what the person is bringing with them into the position. Now, this isn’t to say that every person with a criminal record is going to be a bad employee or hasn’t learned from their past. However, the point is that in order to make the best and most informed decision about who you hire, it’s important to understand their background. You may very well decide to hire the person anyway and that’s all well and good, but don’t neglect your ability to spot red flags before they come a major problem.
If you would like more information about our background checks, give us a call! We would love the opportunity to answer any of your questions! Call (866) 610-4308