Many small businesses rely on close family, friends, and community partnerships as part of their growth strategy. Hiring from this pool of new talent is often affordable and creates a team of reliability and trustworthiness.  Despite how much we believe we know those close contacts, there is the risk of the unknown. What if a friend you hired has a DUI criminal history they didn’t tell you about up front? Do you want this individual behind the wheel of your company vehicles?  

Besides the risk to your customers and existing employees, as well as your brand reputation, poor hiring choices have significant financial consequences. The average cost to simply hire an employee is a whopping $4,000 on average. Add on top of this number the cost of litigating negligent hiring suits, loss of product or assets, or drops in revenue from reputational harm, and the actual price tag for onboarding an employee without a background check can be devastating to your bottom line.

Regardless of an employee’s relationship with your company, running a small business background screening will create transparency about several important personal details, including:

• Work experience
• Criminal record data
• Education and licensing verification
• Credit history

Not only does this information save you from wasting time on the wrong candidate, but it enables you to make an informed hiring decision. The ROI of an employee background check comes in several forms, including:

• Cost savings on training
• Workplace safety
• Liability mitigation
• Rich pool of talented professionals

One of the most crucial aspects of running a small business is practicing hiring practices that are not only consistent but adhere to local, state, and federal regulations. Some pre-employment background checks and even certain job roles have specific criteria that must be met in order to legally run screenings. These laws and guidelines typically dictate how you can use the information found on a small business background screening in making that critical hiring decision.

If your company doesn’t have a set of guidelines in place for performing these types of employee history checks, it’s important to work with a service provider that can educate and help you maintain compliance. Negligent hiring claims against companies are costly, often lead to public opinion affecting your brand reputation, and may dissuade top industry talent from working with your small business.

If you currently rely on a do-it-yourself approach to employee background checks, you have already discovered how wildly inaccurate and restricted information is on cheap third-party record search sites. You may also have realized you don’t have enough time in the day to conduct a thorough research screening either. Personally calling every employer, reference, and local government jurisdiction a candidate resided is time-consuming. The inherent risks of conducting records checks in this way are significant since basing decisions on inaccurate information could lead to a potential lawsuit.

Relying on a reputable small business background screening company like Pre-employ brings several benefits outside time savings. Our services provide a team of researchers that can swiftly locate and verify the information you need. We also go the distance in ensuring that you are up-to-date on any industry regulations so that you are compliant when conducting pre-employment checks on new employees.

When looking for a small business background screening service, you should make sure they include the following services alongside their established reputation and knowledge: