How to Hire the Right Employees

Building A Reliable Work Force

The backbone of any company is indeed the workforce. Unfortunately what a company doesn’t know about their employees can hurt them. Simply asking potential employees about their past may not be enough. Though most applications ask their applicants to be honest on the application, many ignore this request.

Statistics

More than half of all job applicants are dishonest about one or more aspects of their applications. 53% percent of applicants fabricate sections of their applications or resumes. Some of them are being dishonest about their experience and work history. Other applicants are concealing criminal histories and a lot more.

Simply asking an applicant if they’ve been convicted of a felony isn’t enough. If the applicant says no and the company neglects to run a background check, he or she could be exposing the company to embezzlement, or expensive lawsuits.

Do Background Checks

Pre-screening and background checks provided by a local law enforcement company are the only certain way to keep criminals off the pay roll. Every application should have a page dedicated to finding out the criminal history of every applicant.

Retailers lose up to $16 million a year and 75% of employees will steal from their employers at least once. Employee theft is responsible for nearly one third of all business failures. It’s important to keep thieves and violent criminals off the payroll. Some years, 13% of all workplace fatalities are due to acts of violence.

Screen for Drugs

Every company should have a thorough drug screening process as well. It may not seem important but drug abusers cost their employers twice as much in worker’s compensation claims employees that don’t abuse drugs. Drug users are 13% less productive and they change jobs an average of 3 times a year.

Drug addicts are a big problem but so are employees who file fraudulent worker’s compensation claims. An employee may fake an injury or try to get their employer to pay for an old injury. This will lead to higher premiums and a weaker business.

13% of all workers’ comp claims are fraudulent and they cost companies millions of dollars every year.

Some employees falsify their applications and resumes with false achievements, false salary claims from previous employers, and even false birthdates. Other employees are only seeking employment so they may file a discrimination lawsuit. There is virtually an unlimited amount of ways for an employee to hurt a company and running thorough credit and criminal background checks is the only way to keep a company safe. Even if a company discovers a potentially problematic employee before he or she can strike, it may cost up to $40,000 to replace them if they’re an executive. All companies should run credit and background checks and confirm all references as well.