The Value of Background Checks
Who Do You Trust?
The Value of Background Checks: One of our greatest resources as humans, that will help us live our daily lives and realize our dreams, are those people around us who we can trust: friends, families, and neighbors. We build trust in people by getting to know more about them. When we are first introduced to someone, the conversation takes a familiar path: what’s your name? What do you do? Where do you live? What do you like? Slowly, we make a judgment about whether or not this is someone with whom we want to build a relationship.
Why Does it Matter?
When it comes to your business, organization, or department, the question of whom you trust is equally important, and often, quickly. Trusting an employee means giving them access to the lifeblood of a business:
- The goods it sells
- The equipment it uses
- The cash that flows through it
- The proprietary ideas and resources that make it unique and valuable
- The reputation on which it rises or falls
A good employee contributes to productivity, safety in the workplace, positive attitude among the workforce, solid relations with customers and partners, and security of intellectual property, inventory, and cash.
What’s the Danger?
A bad employee can undermine every single one of those. A bad employee can even topple a company over the brink of disaster. The US Chamber of Commerce and the American Management Association have provided us with a startling statistic:
30% of all business failures are caused by employee theft!
Every day, headlines alert us to another danger: violence in the workplace. The Workplace Violence Research Institute reported that in a single month an estimated 16,400 threats were made to American workers, 723 workers were attacked, and 43,800 were harassed. The average award in a workplace violence lawsuit is over $1 million, which ends up costing employers $36 billion each year. Even if you were able to dismiss a bad employee before he or she was able to do any irreparable damage, you will have lost money. The costs to replace an employee is:
What Can You Do?
The answer is to take every precaution to ensure that all new hires are exactly who they represent themselves to be. Your first line of defense is a comprehensive, professionally designed background check.