Questions employers ask about
continuous workforce screening

Workforce criminal screening continuously compares an enrolled roster of employees, contractors, gig workers, volunteers, and others against new primary-source criminal records. It helps identify relevant criminal activity after the initial background check. PostHire does not monitor employee communications, devices, behavior, or location; alerts are based on available criminal records and the criteria an employer configures.

Criminal screening involves identifying potential threats and recognizing behaviors and choices that could jeopardize your business and brand. Employers conduct criminal screening to safeguard their workplace, customers, assets, and reputation, basically the same reasons they conduct background checks. Think of it as a background check that never ends.

Continuous workforce criminal screening may be permitted, subject to applicable federal, state, and local laws. Employers should evaluate requirements for consent, disclosure, permissible use, and adverse action before establishing a monitoring program. PostHire provides tools to support consent collection and compliance workflows.

Workforce screening can identify convictions, arrests, pending cases, dismissed cases, and case progression. Criminal records are sourced from more than 5,000 courts and law enforcement agencies nationwide, covering over 98% of the U.S. population. Monitoring uses continuously updated primary-source information.

Your workforce is compared against new primary-source criminal records continuously rather than on a fixed rescreening schedule. When relevant new activity is identified, PostHire delivers alerts based on your configured criteria, typically within hours. Case tracking provides subsequent updates so teams can follow developments through resolution.

Pre-hire background screening vets potential employment candidates in an effort to keep the “bad guys” out. This type of traditional one-and-done screening is, at best, a snapshot of impermissible activity and is almost immediately out of date. Pre-hire background checks do not uncover problematic incidents that occur after the candidate becomes an employee – they are all about the past. Employers have no visibility into potential criminal activity once the employee becomes part of the team, which is when they potentially may become a real threat to an organization.

A post-employment background check screens someone who already works for you rather than a candidate you are considering hiring. A pre-hire check is a snapshot that starts aging the day it is completed. PostHire provides continuous monitoring using primary-source criminal records from more than 5,000 courts and law enforcement agencies nationwide, alerting employers when relevant new activity is identified.

Many employers that rescreen employees do so on a regular schedule, such as annually or every 2-3 years from hire date. Because of these significant gaps, rescreens leave room for criminal activity to fall under the radar. Would you want to wait a year to find out someone was arrested for assault with a deadly weapon?

Some employers rescreen annually or every two to three years. Scheduled checks can leave gaps between reviews, allowing relevant new criminal activity to go undetected until the next screening cycle. Continuous screening helps close those gaps by comparing an enrolled workforce against newly available primary-source criminal records. More than 200,000 new criminal records are added daily nationwide.

PostHire monitors primary-source criminal records, not employee communications, devices, behavior, or location. Employers should clearly explain what information is reviewed, how it may be used, and who can access it. Appropriate consent, access controls, and clear policies help support employee privacy.

Yes, employees have the right to dispute erroneous information with the organization. Employers should define and follow proper procedures for handling disputes and ensure that decisions are fair and based on accurate information.

To ensure that their monitoring practices comply with anti-discrimination laws, employers should apply consistent standards to all employees, avoid making decisions solely based on a criminal record, and consider rehabilitation and job-relatedness.

Employers should clearly communicate their criminal screening policies during the hiring process, with periodic updates as needed. It is a necessary step in ensuring transparency and trust between the organization and its employees.

Annual background checks and employee self-reporting do not provide the same visibility as continuous workforce monitoring. A continuous monitoring program checks enrolled employees against newly available primary-source criminal records and identifies relevant changes between scheduled background checks.

Almost every organization conducts a background check, but once the check is completed, it is history and the individual you hire now represents a future risk to your organization. Additionally, most background checks are not national in scope. You may not hire a convicted felon, but if they are arrested for a felony after they are hired, don’t you want to know?

Self-reporting simply doesn’t work as there is little to no motivation for someone to put their job at risk. The suspects are released for most infractions within days, if not within hours. For example, in one instance we found an individual who was arrested for shooting someone on a Friday and was back at work the following Wednesday…

As you can see, serious crimes often do not result in long-term confinement, either at arrest or sentencing. Below are some examples of felonies that our clients were unaware of:

• Assault with a Deadly Weapon with Intent to Kill or Inflict Serious Injury
• Sexual Assault
• Child Endangerment
• Embezzlement
• Breaking and Entering
• Larceny
• Habitual Driving While Impaired
• Possession of Controlled Substance with Intent to Sell or Distribute

You don’t know what you don’t know. We have found that up to 4% of the workforce becomes involved in some type of illegal activity, some of which would have precluded them from becoming employees originally. Your ability to demonstrate to stakeholders that your organization has taken timely and fair proactive steps to meet safety and security obligations is one of the program’s ROI.

The return has three parts: what you find, what you avoid, and what you can demonstrate. In one 90-day comparison at a uniformed security company with 50,000 individuals on its roster, PostHire matched 957 incidents to workforce identities where the monitoring service already in place matched 251, with no false positives. The PostHire savings calculator estimates the saving against traditional screening at $8 per employee per year for a workforce of 10,000 to 49,999. That is an illustrative saving, not a PostHire price or a guaranteed result. The third part is harder to price: being able to show stakeholders that the organization took timely and proportionate steps to meet its safety obligations.

PostHire uses proprietary identity matching to associate criminal records with individuals on your roster. Alerts include offense details and may include supporting government records, allowing your team to verify underlying information before taking action. In a 90-day comparison across 50,000 individuals, PostHire reported zero false positives. Employers can also configure alerts using more than 100 offense categories.

Setup and maintenance are simple. All you have to do is provide us with a list of employees to be screened and identify what type of activity you want to be alerted on. That’s it. Alerts are sent to you in real-time as criminal activity occurs. Because our data is directly from the primary source, it will significantly reduce the amount of time required of your resources to verify and investigate the authenticity of convictions.

No. PostHire does not monitor employee communications, devices, behavior, or location. It focuses on relevant primary-source criminal records and provides alerts according to an employer's configured monitoring criteria.