Employment Screening Resources (ESR) has announced its annual list of emerging and influential trends in employment background screening. Some of these 2011 trends have implications for the field of property management when it comes to tenant screening.
- Controversy over whether it’s discriminatory for employers to use credit reports for employment increase. Because of unemployment, many would-be workers are stuck in a cycle of having bad credit because they can’t find work, and being unable to get a job because they have bad credit. In response, some states have passed laws or are considering laws to restrict the use of credit reports and employment and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is looking closely at this area and has filed lawsuits alleging discriminatory use.
- Questions about criminal records of job applicants become more difficult for employers to ask. An employer who hires a person with a criminal record can be found liable for negligent hiring if the decision results in harm and could have been avoided by a criminal record check. The easiest way to avoid this is to perform a thorough background check on a job applicant, but the issue of whether employers can use a job application to ask about one’s criminal has become more complicated.
- Employers discover fast and cheap online background checks using criminal databases not always accurate or legal. With the trend toward more thorough checking into the pasts of potential employees, many websites are springing up that promise cheap instant background checks using “national criminal databases.” But most of these sites aren’t legitimate or thorough. There is much truth to the saying “You get what you pay for.”
- New accreditation standards help employers select background screening firms. Last year the National Association of Professional Background Screeners’ Background Screening Credentialing Council created the Background Screening Agency Accreditation Program to advance professionalism in the background screening industry. The program promotes best practices in the industry, awareness of legal compliance, and the development of standards to protect consumers.
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