It is arguably more important now than ever before to conduct due diligence employee background checks as risk management. While the Fair Credit Reporting Act has intimidated many, it is designed to guide and protect, not to reduce checks.

Safeguarding the workplace and its stakeholders is a service to all by optimizing employee and customer experience. Trust is critical to culture, engagement and success.

When employees know their bad or good acts won’t follow them, they become de-motivated on the job.  An employer who wants the best of employees knows this and reinforces accountability through both seeking and providing employment references.     

Especially now, we need to protect both our immediate workplaces and our ability to compete globally as a nation.  If we take the approach “What happens in Vegas…” with our employees, there is too little motivation for them to give us their best.   There is too little motivation for their coworkers to pull their weight. Our workers and our workplaces lose. This alone is reason enough to protect workplace success and safety through background checks.

Beyond these keys to success, many employers are legally and/or contractually required to conduct background investigations. While many self-serve databases are available for hire, the key to compliance is in the analysis, filtering and custody of information, whereby only job-related information is delivered to the employer. This filtering serves as expert affirmative defense, safeguarding against perceived or actual discrimination or privacy violation. This expert and custom filtering by third party legal experts, such as Ollenburg LLC, builds trust among employers and employees alike.

Our partners at Ollenburg LLC deliver four decades of high functioning background investigation, expert filtering for lawful job-relatedness, and careful FCRA compliance for employers and employees. In recent months, the popularity of this OLLC service has inspired us to spin it into it’s own brand with fresh logo at LawfulChecks.com.

Laws clearly protect the employer when information is factual, non-subjective, and used in no discriminatory or otherwise unlawful manner. When seeking references, professional third parties can be far more effective, as the employer can trust information will be used within full legal compliance.  Sure, there are questions you shouldn’t ask, but the information gained by asking the questions you can is so valuable, it’s irresponsible not to. 

Employees should work with the incentive to avoid “burning bridges” and leave “on good terms” with hopefully a recommendation.  Employers of choice recognize the value of this investigation and are most likely to speak freely with a trusted expert reference checking source.