BEST PRACTICE #14 FOR PROPER USE OF CRIMINAL BACKGROUND CHECKS IN HIRING
Today we continue our recommendations based on a recent paper published by representatives from the National H.I.R.E. Network, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and the National Workrights Institute, called Best Practice Standards: The Proper Use of Criminal Records in Hiring, with a look at point #14:
TRAIN HUMAN RESOURCES STAFF
This practice is almost self-explanatory and doesn’t need much elaboration although one point that comes to mind is remembering that state and local laws vary from state to state and from locality to locality. Furthermore, it still isn’t clear if federal regulations take precedence over state or local laws – which creates significant confusion about what federal regulations or state laws to follow. For example, some states allow access to convictions going back as far as records are available, while other states will only provide information about convictions for the last seven years.
The best advice seems to be to follow these “best practice” guidelines and make sure everyone involved with the hiring process really does understand them. One of the best policies to adopt is insuring a safe workplace for all employees, which can then be combined with the relevance of the conviction to the job being filled and establishing a reasonable policy about how recent relevant convictions took place. The seven year standard is usually considered to be a reasonable one!