Implementation

The human resources department should set up program with vendor’s assistance. Each organization will develop its own forms and procedures based on its own requirements and goals. This will entail a variety of personnel protocols, establishing contacts and liaisons between company and vendor, determining time requirements, and such basis mechanisms as fax numbers.

File Maintenance

Investigative Consumer Reports (screening reports) should never be maintained in employee’s jacket, but should instead be kept under lock and key with limited access by authorized management personnel in separate file facility and in alphabetical order. The files should be maintained for seven-year statutory period commensurate with employee file retention.

Background information forms contain confidential subject data, including date of birth and other information, and should not be maintained by human resources department. The vendor should do this as part of their service, and in event form is required for court purposes, should provide it upon request for up to seven years.

Interpretation

Parameters on how to interpret information should be established at outset of program, and should be undertaken by same personnel to ensure consistent application of theorems of qualifiers for continued candidacy or hiring. This area is open for discussion and, of course, varies with each environment.

As you can undoubtedly imagine, in order to properly implement any factual screening program one needs to start with forms which allow candidate to provide thorough information such as name, address and so forth. These forms should be starting point for any intelligent screening program. Just about everyone has an employment application, or some form of release/disclaimer used in initial application process.

Many screening firms are turning to some form of independent release form for their clients, after long conducting checks without them. The forms vary in substance and content, and you would be well advised to learn as much as possible about philosophy of form before using it in order to avoid trouble from an unsophisticated form. The information requested should include following:

Full Name Current and prior addresses Ancillary name forms Social Security number Date of birth (Yes, this absolutely legal if it is being used for criminal file identification purposes, and applicant is made aware of this sole use. You must also not keep a copy of this form anywhere in employee’s file in case EEOC auditor doesn’t see things quite way you do.) Driver’s license number Criminal history disclosure section (This varies from state to state, and must be constructed in accordance with guidelines and standards for disclosure, acquisition and release of criminal information under applicable state law.) Agreement and consent to obtain consumer information (Some of more sophisticated forms now in use have some effective, built-in disclosure inducement items which are result of investments in psychological research and testing. These are designed to get more than just a regurgitation of subject identifiers.) We have purposely not provided a sample form with this article due to proprietary nature of good ones in existence. Also, since each business environment is different, it is possible that a “generic” form might be used improperly.

Conclusion

At this point, you should have a basic familiarity and comfort level with world of factual employment screening and its ramifications. The key things to remember are as follows.

Establish an intelligent and consistent policy of factual employment screening, drug testing, and/or personality evaluation.

.Perform a thorough job of screening your employment candidates.Rely only upon tried and true methods of employment screening, as trendy or new wave methods, which are untested, can land you in court very quickly.

.Use common sense and rely on your intuition. Good, solid factual employment screening is not ultimate decision maker – you are. The final report should only serve to reinforce your evaluation of candidate, nothing more.

.Run your screening program with compliance in mind at all times. If you don’t, it is certain that labor attorneys, EEOC auditors, and others will confront you. In a nutshell, employment screening is like any other sensible management policy. If you are careful, smart, thoroughly qualify your vendors, and implement a viable common sense program, you will not only get better people in organization, but also have less opportunity to exercise your workplace violence contingency plans or initiate fraud examinations.

Now put yourself in your committee members’ shoes. They open their email box, save documents to their desktop or to a folder in order to work on them, and then they realize, they don’t know which of your drafts is latest version. They have no idea which draft to edit and send back to you. The pile of confusing documents on their desktop is no better than a confusing pile of loose sheets of paper on your desk. Both waste time and money, both take up needed space, and both create big problems.

The Document Signature is message at bottom of each document that either you or your collaboration partners work on. The message includes vital information, such as what is status of latest draft of document you are looking for and where you can find it.

Groupware which Displays Version History

It may still be a little difficult to piece together all of various drafts of your document, and oftentimes it is helpful to have a visual of editorial process which document went through. A groupware which can display a draft history will make it even easier to understand where documents have been, when they were saved, who worked on them, what changes were made, and how they were sent.

Groupware with Version History will create a family tree of document if you want trace document versions. This means you will know who’s, what’s, when’s, where’s, and how’s of every budget report, sales presentation, market research results, and anything else your company collaborates on with groupware.

In reality, after weeks, months, or even years of collaborating on reports and contracts, finding right draft, even with some groupware packages, can be like finding a needle in a haystack. Keeping track of all of them is almost an unthinkable task. Groupware is a software meant to provide document management services to businesses, but business cannot afford to get an incomplete suite. Happy hunting.