BEST PRACTICE #11 FOR PROPER USE OF CRIMINAL BACKGROUND CHECKS IN HIRING
Earlier this summer, a group of consultants got together with representatives from the National H.I.R.E. Network, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and the National Workrights Institute to publish their recommendations for staying within the lines of the 2012 EEOC guidance on the use of criminal history checks in the course of background screening. Their publication, called Best Practice Standards: The Proper Use of Criminal Records in Hiring, is gaining attention from the industry not so much for being original, but for their conscious effort to deliver the advice that many HR are looking for.
Yet with 15 points of instruction detailed across 30 pages of content, some are still struggling to find time to review this consolidated viewpoint, instead choosing to ring our office for advice. Because Barada is already addressing many of their recommendations in the services we’re delivering to our clients, we thought it prudent to weigh in with our opinion as well as point out just how we’re addressing the issue.
Here’s point #11: ALL CHARGES RELATED TO A SINGLE INCIDENT SHOULD BE REPORTED AS A SINGLE ENTRY
This one can be confusing. What it amounts to is if an applicant was involved in a car accident and, as a result, was charged and convicted of more than one offense, like, lets say, speeding, DWI, and vehicular homicide. Those convictions may show up in more than one database and, as a result, show up in more than one place in a criminal background check. The point that’s being made is if the same convictions show up in more than one database the impression could be that the candidate has more convictions when, in fact, there are only three that resulted from that single incident – in this illustration, the original car accident. The solution that’s being suggested, therefore, is for CRAs to make sure that they only report the convictions that resulted from that one car accident once. Stated another way, CRAs are, therefore, being urged to clean up their criminal background checks to ensure that any convictions resulting from one incident only appear once in a criminal background check.