Month: March 2010

Categories
Background Checks

Employer Gets Ten Year Prison Sentence for Hiring Undocumented Workers

We have been warning employers about hiring undocumented workers for a couple of years now.  Hiring workers you may suspect as being illegal or undocumented, choose your own preferential language, can lead expensive fines, business shutdowns and public embarrassment.  There are more than a few examples out there.

I have blogged about this before.  For one such blog, see Arizona Sues First Employer for Hiring Undocumented Workers.

But here is a case where the employer was just sentenced to ten years imprisonment for hiring illegal workers.  Ten years.  You may think of it as justice, you may think of it as unfair.  But the main thing to think about is that it doesn’t happen to you.    According to BusinessBrief.com, , a federal appeals court has affirmed the sentencing of Richard Rosenbaum to ten years in jail.  Rosenbaum was convicted of knowingly hiring undocumented workers and in the course of doing so,  he defrauded the government by not paying his Social Security benefits and Medicare benefits.   The feds claim that Rosenbaum and his company cheated the IRS out of $16million.

Look, this is a lousy economy and there are plenty of documented workers out there who are in need of a job.    Maybe they weren’t willing to work for less wages or to perform menial work before.  But with this economic meltdown, my how things have changed.  People are without jobs and need to find something.

If you, the employer, thinks you are getting away cheap by hiring undocumented workers, think again.   Massive fines, business closures.  And a prison sentence.   Realize the IRs is now getting into the act, as they are cracking down on those who defy the law and try to cheat on paying employment taxes.

So  run background checks.  Check out your employment candidates.  Run the E-Verify, the I-9.   Conduct a Social Security Trace to verify that your job candidate is working under a valid social security number.  His social security number.  In short, check them out, before you hire.

Categories
Background Checks

Drug Tests for Older Employees

All right, so this is really tongue in cheek.  Well, sort of.   Having recently read an article on Yahoo News, entitled Marijuana Use By Seniors Goes Up As Boomers Age,  I couldn’t help but wonder what most employers would do if they find out through preemployment drug tests that their more senior executives are huffing on the bong, after work.   Does it matter?   And if so, how do you deal with it?  Do you deal with it the same way as you would deal with a younger job candidate?

Imagine as an employer thinking to yourself, “well he brought in umpteen millions of business, is highly respected in this industry, but he smokes pot when he gets home.”  So what do you do?

Suppose there is a zero tolerance drug policy.  Do you let your Senior Vice President go for smoking marijuana on his or her on time?  Interesting questions.   As more employers are instituting drug tests as part of their preemployment screening program, this may actually become an issue.   I write this of course with the assumption that your senior job applicant his past all other background checks and has neither state criminal records or federal criminal records, largely white collar criminal records in his history.

I wrote this also with the understanding that your senior executives are sharing doobies with the younger members of the staff, during the work hours.   I guess the interesting question is does pot use matter all that much?  And to whom?   I have had one staffing group in the healthcare industry tell me of all the background checks they run on nurses and healthcare workers, the one they care about the least is where is shows positive on the drug test for marijuana.   The one client said to me, “if I had to eliminate all the nurses smoking pot, I wouldn’t have enough job candidates to staff a small medical office yet alone a hospital.”  This may be hyperbole, but certainly he was making a point.

And then what happens in a state like California where pot is all but legal.  At least if your job candidate has a legal permit allowing him to smoke marijuana for medical reasons, then can the employer fire him if he drug test shows positive for marijuana.   Hard to say.  Whenever I have asked the question, people seem to hem and haw, but no one really seems to know the answer.  At least with regard to the people I spoke to about it.

Meanwhile, as the economy attempts to turn around and more boomers remain in the workforce for longer periods, either because they don’t want to retire or can’t afford to retire, then the drug habits most picked up on the sixties are posing whole new issues about drug tests.  I would think.

Categories
Background Checks

Driving Records and Education Verification Background Checks

Alot of employers conduct a very thorough and comprehensive series of background checks and part of their preemployment screening program.   Others try to cut costs and make assumptions that may come back to bite them.   Assumptions in this world can lead a business to ruin.  If not to ruin, then they can be very costly mistakes.

If you are hiring an employment candidate who for the position must have obtained a college education of post-graduate degree, then make sure he actually had one.    Many job applicants lie about their education, especially during tough economic times when jobs are scarce and competition is fierce.   In hopes that they can somehow slip through unnoticed, employment candidates will list a degree when they only attended for a year or two.   Or, in some cases, they never went to the school, but thought it would be a good idea to list it, anyway, as being their Alma Mater.   Some post it because they believe it is an obscure school, and some post it because it is a large school and believe their lack failing to attend will somehow be lost in the shuffle.

Some of the repercussions are obvious.  Some are not.  Your job applicant needs special skill sets that are sometimes attainable only by qualifying for a college degree or post-graduate work.   Your associative team is depending on his to know his.  You clients believe he is qualified.  To find out otherwise, is to invite embarrassment and possible costly litigation, if your employee should screw up royally.   So be sure to run education verifications as part of your background checks.

Same holds true for Motor Vehicle Driving Records, or MVRs.   If your employee drives for you, then you can be held responsible for any of their accidents that occur during business hours.   MVRs assist you in determining substance abuse and other bad behavior patterns.   Motor Vehicle Driving Records are an essential background search these days.  For the few bucks it cost, it can save a lot of aggravation.  And money.

Check them out before you hire.

Categories
Background Checks

Background Checks Could Thwart Employee Theft

Employees will steal from you.   This is no secret.   Some employees will steal the small stuff like pens and paper.    Others will steal the more important things, like proprietary information and sensitive databases.   These are the things that can be embarrassing and costly, if stolen.

According to The Sydney Morning Herald, a security guard was in cahoots with robbers who attacked the armored van on three different occasions.  On two occasions, the robber were unsuccessful, but the third time they made off with $170,000.   The ssecurity guard was part of the scheme, rendering what one defense attorney referred to as a “stupid and absurd robbery attempt” operation an inside job.  The security guard supplied the robbers with the schedule, the routes, and the amount of cash the van would be carrying.

Apparently, there was some comedy to the stupidity and the clumsiness of the robbers in this case.  But inother cases, less dramatic cases, when your employee makes off with sensitive databases or proprietary information, or company cash, it is hardly a laughing matter.   Losses can be grievous as evidence by different instances where employees set themselves up as shell corporations and siphoned off millions of dollars.

The best way to help prevent employee theft is by conducting thorough and vigorous background checks.  Not just criminal records, but other background searches, like the Motor Vehicle Records Search, or MVR, and Credit Reports, which will help you reveal personal character and behavioral characteristics.   In this terrible economy, especially, employees in trouble with creditors are more prone to make desperate moves.  People who normally wouldn’t steal make be tempted.    Conducting MVR’s and credit reports in addition to criminal records searches go a long way in determining character, in telling an employer what kind of straits they job candidate is in.

In an economic downturn, job applicants may be indulging in substance abuse, and a drug test or the MVR records for Driving While Intoxicated will provide an indication.   Then there is the issue of credit, replete with foreclosures, past due accounts, closed accounts, and account put into collections.  the credit report will help determine whether if you hire an employment candidate whether you must consider creditors garnishing his wages.  This means extra paperwork for you.

And then there is the matter of theft.   No employer needs it.  Now now, especially, when every business is struggling to stay afloat and needs every dollar it has.   So check them oiut before you hire.