Month: March 2010

Not long ago, several of us were discussing the issue of medical marijuana and its impact on employers.   Suppose employers conducted drug tests or ran assorted background checks and discovered their employment candidate was legally using medical marijuana.   Is it okay?  Is it not okay?  In short, what’s up with this?

So now we are seeing, if not definitive information, then at least some early considerations for medical marijuana in the workplace.   Colorado legalized marijuana in 2000.  However, Pueblo County officials ruled that legal or medical marijuana would be considered along the same lines as alcohol in the workplace.  The officials warned employees not to smoke grass at the workplace or come to work under its influence.   In Colorado, there  is an amendment to the medical marijuana law, excluding the workplace as an acceptable place to use medical marijuana.  However, in some contrast, the law also states that an employee cannot be fired for being under its influence.

In California, the employer does have the right to fire you for using medical marijuana.  This is a ruling by the California State Supreme Court, noting that marijuana, medical or not, is still illegal, according to federal law.  Oregon and Washington State have also held up the employer’s right to fire their stoned employees for medical marijuana usage.    Interesting and confusing stuff.

Wal-Mart may have added to the general dilemma by firing an employee for using medical marijuana.    The big box giant noted it was concerned for the safety of its customers.  Other employers have also chosen to fire employees for fear of negligence arising from stoned employees  somehow harming  customers.  It could happen, I suppose.  Especially if the customer had a big bag of Cheetos sticking out of his pocket.  The Michigan Department of Civil Rights is investigating the case to see if Wal-Mart has violated the state’s disabilities protection laws.

Of the different background checks and the monitoring of a job candidate’s social network pages is the toughest call.   Credit reports are yet another background check burdened with its fair share of controversy.   With respect to credit reports, it is  not always crystal clear, as some reputable and competent job candidates suffer from the economic downturn or have been overwhelmed by either debt from college loans or medical bills.

With respect to medical marijuana int he workplace,  there are any number of issues here.    Does medical marijuana causes its user to risk greater injury in the work place?   Are they that much more of a danger to others?  I really don’t know.  I am sure in the future we will see study after study, most of which will be skewed to favor that initiating group’s point of view.   We can expect a lot of conflicting information.

One suggestion is to run the background check to see if your employment candidate has previous criminal records where substance abuse is at issue.  Run the MVRs or motor vehicle driving records to check for DUIs.   These are good background checks for ascertaining prior substance abuse.   Then of course you have more information and can make a better decision.   Also, if your medically marijuana using employee is in a back office where he can do little harm, that too is a consideration.

This is a tough call all the way around.  I am sure we will see additional legislation and additional rulings from the court on this.

Identity theft is a serious business.  Everyone knows about how identity thieves can uses your identity to obtain credit and run up a bill that the consumer is ultimately responsible for.   Everyone is aware of how an indemnity thief can open up a bank account in the consumer’s name, buy a car and do any number of things that can leave the poor consumer in the lurch. Identity thieves can file fraudulent medical claims and employ someone’s identity for any number of scams.

But what is seldom discussed is how an identity thief can apply for employment, using someone’s identity to avoid detection for past crimes and sexual offenses.    The identity thief can essentially pose as someone else and work for as long as he likes.  This may not be happening in a big way now, but as the recent article in the Los Angeles Times attest, identity theft is always in transition, constantly morphing into new and increasingly virulent forms.   There are indications the new form may include employment applications.

A convicted felon or sex offender applying for a job may want to enter the workplace under a different name and social security number.  His largest concern is hardly his future social security benefits but finding gainful employment.   You job applicant may be a wanted for crimes in other states and staying a step ahead of the law.  Still, chances are he needs to find work.

It is important to conduct the Social Security Trace as part of the background checks you run on all your job applicants.  Once you run the Social Security Trace, you may see additional names appear on the background report.  Some of those names may be natural permutations as people change and abbreviate their names.  In the case of female job applicants, you may see their married  or maiden names.   With younger people, their parents’ names could appear or others with whom they are sharing apartments or some credit.  Social Security Traces largely come off of credit headers as well as other public information.

But then you see the case where your employment applicant applied on one name, but other names show up on his Social Security Trace. This can prove suspicious.  Who are these people?   Sometimes they are undocumented workers using your candidate name to pose as legitimate workers.   But sometimes the background checking results will indicate that the social security number in fact belongs to another person.

Of course, if your identity thief may try to beat  your background check by is applying for employment under the name of the person from whom he stole his new identity.   Criminal records background checks may not help you as the actual owner of that identity may be pure as the driven snow.   But that’s where education verification and employment verificaitons come in handy.   Chances are your identity thief would be employee has no knowledge of the actual person’s past history with regard to previous employment or education.

In the end this may not be a serious problem for most employers at the moment.  But in the future this kind of identity theft may yet be one more thing to consider.

Check them out before you hire.

There is so much bad news; here is some good news for a change.   The advertising industry is showing signs of life.   According to an article in Advertising Age, entitled, Hiring Freeze Starts to Thaw as Agency Business Hunts for Talent, the advertising industry lost nearly  200,000 jobs in the past couple years.   As companies tightened up their advertising and marketing budgets, the ad agencies were forced to pare down.

But now ad budgets are on the increase and the agencies are looking for talent.   There are virtually hundreds of job openings, ranging from account executives, account directors, to business development personnel.   The health industry is responsible for a fair amount of the advertising, as is some of the emerging media.

No one is jumping for joy just yet, as there have been fitful starts and stops in the advertising job market.   But at least there are signs of life.   Of course, as much advertising and marketing makes the transition from the more traditional media platforms to the digital space, there will be an increased need for employees with special skill sets.

As a background checking company, we encourage ad agencies to conduct comprehensive preemployment screening on all their employment candidates.  As it sometimes happens in a hiring period, certain claims on the candidate’s resume are sometimes neither accurate nor true.  It is especially important to conduct education verification in addition to criminal background checks.   Reference verifications are helpful in determining skill sets.

I would think when dealing with ad people you are dealing with hyperbole.  So it’s a matter of filtering out the hype from the reality when considering a job candidate for a position.   Part of it is the interview process associated with the pre-employment screening, and part of it is a decent background check and third party input.    Some employers are using social media monitoring to see if the employment candidate had negative or outlandish comments about his past employers, or the people with whom he worked.  All good stuff to know.

Check them out before you hire.