Month: September 2008

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Background Checks Business Credit Reports Business Research Economy Human Resources Miscellany Personal Background Checks preemployment screening Retaining Employees Staffing Uncategorized

So…How is Your Business?

Okay, we have all seen the markets, heard the news and ducked for cover.  Or not.  The news is enough to make you ill, if you could even afford to be ill, what with medical costs and down time.

So everyone is uncertain, and each day is a new adventure.   You don’t know whether to fire people, excuse me, lay them off, downsize, something polite, or hire people to explore new channels.   Potential clients call you for goods and services but you don’t know if they are good for the bill for your goods and services.   These kinds of things are normally know and dilemmas, or in a milder form, considerations.   In this economic climate, these considerations are critical.

Let’s face it, if your clients don’t pay you, you don’t pay your vendors and employees, and the whole thing steamrolls into one ruined business.   On the other hand, this lousy economy may well present opportunity.   Niche markets and the last business standing.   That kind of stuff.

While others tuck in, this may be the time to take a few chances, reach out, seek new channels.  Hire the people who can expand your business in difficult times.

Whether you are hiring new employees or thinking about taking on new clients, you will want to run preemployment screening searches and corporate research.   Corporate research may include individual assets reports, county criminal and county civil searches, and detailed business credit reports for companies in the United States and throughout the world.

These are tough times.   Be bold.  Be successful.   That’s the spirit.

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Background Checks Business Research Economy Human Resources Miscellany News Retaining Employees Staffing Uncategorized

Washington State Driver Records Are Now Instant

For ages, it seems, when our clients ordered Washington State Motor Vehicle Driving Records on their employment candidates the records didn’t return for the following day.   Corra can now offer these Washington State Driving records so that they return instantly to your Corra account.

When you set up a background checking account with Corra Group, you will be able to order the DMV‘s for all fifty states and even for some Canadian Provinces.   In most cases the driving records will return to you in about forty seconds or less.   There are a few remaining streets where the driving searches are ordered via batch file and will return the following day, or in one or two cases, several days later.

With Corra Group’s software, all Motor Vehicle Driving Records will be permanently stored inside your account for easy access and review.   For Trucking and Transportation companies a simple click of a button will inform you when your drivers should have their driving records updated to meet the compliance standards of the Department of Transportation (DOT).

Check them out before you hire.

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Background Checks Business Research Economy Human Resources Miscellany News Staffing Uncategorized

Retailers, Be Careful What You Sell

Looks like China is at it again.  Hong Kong authorities just found melamine in more products made in China, including drinks, ice cream, and yogurt.  If you recall, not long ago U.S. authorities discovered melamine in supposedly premium pet food from China was chocked full of industrial melamine and ruining the kidneys and killing thousands of pets.   My dog died on that one.

Then of course there was toxins in toothpastes exported from China, anti-freeze elements, if memory services, and there are warnings about anti-mold chemicals in Chinese-made furniture that creates allergies, rashes, all sorts of stuff.   None of it is good.  A lot of it is lethal.  And even more of it is disturbing.  It appears what was once regarded as a bargain, meaning Chinese goods, is no longer a bargain.

But China will do what China does.   One woman, her family had Scandanavian retail furniture store for about thirty years, in Los Angeles, told me that the Chinese manufacturers will cheat on the chemicals and products they use.   When the American examiners come, they will drag out the compliant stuff, and then, once the Americans leave, out again comes the cheap, toxic compounds.   Lovely.

The mean thing is whether the retailers here will continue to sell the potentially dangerous goods from China.   If you are a retailer and continue to do so, it can adversely affect your business.   If you don’t believe it, a case in point are the two women I saw in Marshall’s passing on ceramic cookware that was made in China.   They chose the ceramic cookware from Portugal instead, but didn’t buy the quantity they had intended to, orginally.   These were Russian women, relatively recent immigrants who still had their accents.   They came from a country that had a scarcity of goods.   But now that they were in the United States, no way they were buying inferior or dangerous product.

These are hard times, economically speaking.   Business is not to be taken lightly.  Consumers are not to be mistreated.  You should be hiring courteous sales personnel who actually provide service.   Run background checks on these people and train them for their jobs.   And, most importantly, try not to poison your customers.   There aren’t all that many to go around at the moment.   Their loss would be noticed.

Categories
Background Checks Business Credit Reports Business Research Economy Human Resources Miscellany preemployment screening Staffing Uncategorized

Lehman Employees Selling on EBay

It was reported recently that the former employees at the collapsed financial icon, Lehman Brothers, are now selling off of EBay.   They are selling whatever knicknacks, memorabilia, even a Lehman’s water bottle are going off at auction.    Another was selling the  branded helmet to a fire safety team.

If nothing else, it does bring a touch of humor to a dire situation.   Twenty bucks here, thirty there.  Not bad for a company that a few weeks ago was used to dealing in billions of dollars.   Pretty amazing how quickly they are falling.  Pretty scary.

So in these times, it pays to manage your business and make sure you not only do preemployment screening to make sure your job candidates really are who they say they are, but to also do corporate research on companies with whom you do business to be sure they, too, really are who they say they are.   So they don’t place an order with you one day and then have their own employees selling off their memorabilia the next.

Good advice.  Check them out before you do business.