We are experiencing an interesting trend among a growing number of our clients – more and more are periodically re-checking their employees! An increasing number of companies appreciate the importance of continuing to do background checks on their employees. How often the re-checks are done varies with the employer, but our experience has been that re-checks vary anywhere from annually to every five years.
Annual re-checks tend to be driving record checks. Checks that are done less frequently tend to be more comprehensive the longer they are apart. At the five year mark, re-checks tend to cover the same types of checks as the initial background check that was done at the time the person was hired.
For employers who are contemplating initiating a re-check program, it’s very important to make sure that a policy is adopted that insures that every employee is treated the same. If an employer should decide to re-check only employees under a certain age or of a particular ethnic group, he is leaving himself wide open to an EEOC charge of discrimination. There’s nothing wrong with doing an annual re-check of every employee’s driving record – assuming that makes sense for that type of business; then a policy needs to be in place insuring that annual re-checks are done on all employees.
Depending on the type of business, establishing a re-check policy makes very good sense. Just because a new hire came through the initial background checking process with flying colors doesn’t necessarily mean that, over the space of a couple of years, a poor life decision could have been made that might adversely impact his employability or job performance. As always, it’s better to be safe than sorry.