How to Protect Yourself and Your Company from Employees That Will Cost You Money Instead of Make You Money
BY ANDY KAY
Business owners have a million things to worry about on a daily basis. They need to make sure their staff show up on time and are being productive; they need to make sure accounting is accountable and they have to manage the entire health of their company. Once you hire an employee, it can be very difficult and expensive to fire them. This is not taking into account the time and money you have invested in their training. Making sure you don’t hire the wrong person is just as important as making sure you don’t overlook the right potential employee.
When you are hiring a new employee there are many things to take into consideration. Whether you are hiring a full-time office manager or an independent sub-contractor you need to know what lies in this person’s past. You need to know things that could affect their ability to produce and create, flaws that could compromise their trustworthiness, and lawsuits that make you cringe.
For example, if they were involved in numerous frivolous lawsuits against former employers (or anyone) wouldn’t you want to know that? Do they have a history of injuries? And would you not want to know if they were defaulting on their current loans? What if this potential employee had been convicted of fraud? Would you hire a person that had stolen money or property? Most likely, you would choose another person applying for the position who had a clean work history.
At our company, Kay and Associates Investigations, we can find out if someone is litigious, has a history of violence, or if there is other criminal activity in their background. Our background searches are so in-depth that we cross reference from multiple sources and databases that are not available to the general public, and our results are superb in the industry. Accompanying our background searches with our social media investigations and surveillance department will give you the best possible answers about your potential employee.
“Things that could negatively affect a person’s work performance or make you the next victim of their fraudulent or dishonest behavior are incredibly important to have knowledge of prior to hiring.” -Andy Kay, Founder of Kay and Associates Investigations
How can doing in-depth background checks protect your business and help you avoid hiring the wrong person for the job?
Background checks are a way to protect yourself as the employer, as well as protecting the company, and the other employees within your company. Getting an in-depth background check can give insight to many things, such as:
1. Find previous law suits, including any against other employers
2. Discover personal issues that would affect work performance
3. Get full disclosure of their documented work history
4. See any criminal history
5. Know if they have a history of domestic violence
6. Be informed about possible drug or alcohol abuse
You wouldn’t let a stranger come into your home to spend time with your family; you shouldn’t allow a stranger into your work family without having strong knowledge of their professional behavior and criminal history. It’s much more difficult to fire someone once they are hired, than to simply do a background check to make sure they are who they say they are. You want to ensure the person is not dangerous or a threat to your company’s wellbeing. It’s not just about protecting your business, but also about protecting the people who work there. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard horror stories of employers who have had to deal with bad employees. Violent or dishonest behavior by an employee can affect the productivity of entire teams and cause trauma that lasts for months.
Hiring for a high-level position? Call us.
Hiring a new CEO can create a stronger, more successful company; hiring the wrong one, however, can bankrupt it. Do the math: if you hire a CEO who has done well to hide a previous scandal (yes, there are companies who can quash a few news articles for the right price!) you may be setting yourself up to lose a huge amount of money and a large number of customers. It’s just not worth it. Call us and I can do a thorough and in-depth search into their past. I have saved companies and employers from major potential disaster. We use very powerful databases that are not available to the public. Doing a cheap online search or getting your information from cheap online sites is a terribly poor business decision.
If, however, you find yourself in a bind where you hired a bad apple it’s still not too late; we have methods and knowledge to help you fix things. Call us and we will do a free phone consultation to get you where you need to be to move forward. Businesses are a bit like credit: very hard to build, and very, very easy to ruin.
