August 14th, 2017 | Sterling

Background Re-Screening: The More the Merrier

As employers, we put a strong emphasis on keeping our workplaces safe through background screening our potential hires. Sterling Talent Solutions conducted a survey of 500+ HR professionals in the United States, and of those surveyed, 89% confirmed that their business uses background screening as a preventative measure against workplace discrimination, harassment, fraud and violence. But if we want to guard against any and all illegal activity in the workplace, we can’t forget about the people already working with us.

What is Re-Screening?

A less commonly discussed topic is the concept of re-screening. Re-screening is the process of performing background checks on current employees in any industry ranging from educational organizations to large corporate firms and small businesses. There is a misconception that background screening is one-and-done for businesses. If you’ve already checked for a criminal record or credit debt, you’re good right? Think again. A current employee can engage in illegal behaviour even if they don’t have a previous criminal record, which then would not only affect the individuals involved but your company brand as well.

Think of a teacher in charge of a class of 25 students. She may call in a teacher’s aide to help her keep an eye on all of her students, being that she can only watch so many children at a time. We like to think of re-screening in the same way: an additional way to monitor all of your people. Some companies have an honour code that mandates self-reporting, but this system can be irregular and not account for untruthful workers. A more structured program that includes complete background checks including driver abstracts, criminal record checks, credit checks and more, has fewer loopholes. If you choose to prioritize re-screening, various options for a program include random screens or bi-annual and annual screening.

Importance of Re-Screening

It is hard to overstate the importance of knowing your employees and information relevant to their professional lives. Your people represent you and your brand to your most valued clients, prospects and the public at large, while also handling your top internal resources. Trusting that your employees are honourable and honest people is at the heart of this relationship, and background screening helps achieve this peace of mind. Sterling recommends that you mitigate the risk of missing an employee’s crime that can tarnish your company’s reputation and endanger your people by choosing to invest in re-screening. Be sure to follow all compliance laws surrounding background screening logistics in Canada.

While companies want to prevent a bad hire, they might not realize it until too late and re-screening helps with that discovery. Learn how to see signs for a bad hire in Sterling Talent Solutions’ white paper, “How to Avoid a Bad Hire”.

Download How to Avoid a Bad Hire

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