Data security is imperative in today’s global digital economy. No organization can afford to compromise its customers’ confidential information or the company’s valuable intellectual property. But effective cybersecurity strategies are insufficient to address the threat to a company’s brand and other assets from incomplete background screening of employees and independent contractors.
Due Diligence Doesn’t Stop
Prehire employee background screening is standard procedure in all industries, but due diligence is never satisfied by assessing risk only once. Over time, the pressures of contemporary life can lead some people to cross boundaries, exercise bad judgment, suffer financial stress, or develop a dangerous antisocial mindset.
Only continuous background screening can reliably keep responsible corporate security officers sufficiently informed about developing threats to the safety of the company’s workforce, the larger community, and the brand’s reputation. The evolution of information collection technology now enables detailed reports to be provided in real-time about new employee arrests, arraignments, and each case’s travel through the criminal justice process.
Executives who are responsible for protecting shareholders from liability for injuries caused by employee misconduct or negligence need immediate access to accurate and complete information when employees and other contractors are involved in events involving law-enforcement agencies. The most advanced continuous screening models now source arrest and prosecution data directly from the official court docket, eliminating the initial arrest intake errors so much a part of traditional screening reports.
Customize Risk Awareness
Advances in continuous workforce screening also permit clients to customize the types of information they wish to be alerted to rather than receiving reports with little relevance to their industry priorities. Large rideshare companies value information involving dangerous driving, DUI, and incidents involving violence. Large financial institutions naturally have a special interest in any crimes involving dishonesty and theft. Each consumer of continuous workforce screenings can restrict or specify the data it receives.
As the frequency and devastation of workplace violence seem to increase nationwide, every company should redouble its commitment to protecting the security of its facilities and take reasonable measures to prevent avoidable disasters. While no one can predict the time and place a troubled employee will decide to harm others, maintaining an awareness of someone’s accumulating criminal charges provides actionable insight that can save lives.
Both federal and state governments require the employee’s consent to conduct background screening and full disclosure of how that information will be used, stored, and secured. How each company uses the information obtained through continuous workforce screening depends on their individual policies and procedures and the applicable law. But overlooking the availability of detailed reports about employee criminal conduct is an unreasonably high-risk endeavor in the current social environment.
True National Coverage
Traditional background screening was conducted by agencies that purchased their information from county governments or used a national criminal database as the source of its information. Some companies boast they provide a national search, but they fall short due to their source’s incomplete coverage. That’s because many counties and some states do not share their arrest or prosecution data with national databases.
Affordable travel today makes every corner of the nation a possible source of relevant information when attempting to learn whether a prospective or current employee was arrested or convicted of a felony or misdemeanor. Leveraging a provider that searches nationally every day will help ensure your company knows of employee events that may impact your organization.
To obtain the highest level of continuous screening and be alerted in near real-time, choose the services of a screening company with a truly saturating reach into every courtroom across the United States. The advantage of such a data-driven system is impossible to overstate.
Any less-than-thorough background screening report invites the reader to assume a false sense of security that exposes the company, its workforce, and the community to an unknown risk of damage that could have been guarded against.
Total Security for Your Company
Protecting your company’s confidential data and intellectual property from cybercriminals will remain a high priority in the global digital age. But threats from ordinary people within the corporate community can still inflict financial liability, reputational damage to the brand, and personal injuries to others. Remaining alert to this equally dynamic risk requires corporate security officers and personnel managers to continue exercising due diligence by continually screening their workforce after they become a risk, which begins when they become employees.
