Just a reminder that Corra Group will be closed New Year’s Day. Our offices will open once again Monday morning, January 4th, 2010 at 8:30 A.M. Pacific Time.
Can you believe it? Two Thousand Ten.
Wishing everyone a better year.
Corra Group, the premier service in background checking and corporate research will have the following schedule for the New Year’s Holiday. On Thursday December 31, we will be closing at noon, Pacific Time, and will be closed all day January 1st, 2010.
Happy New Year to All. Looking forward to helping you with you background checking needs in 2010.
As the Co-Founder of Corra Group, a background checking service, I have watched with mixture of fascination and concern as more and more public service agencies are discovering many of their employment hires who have criminal records are going undetected. This is true for State and public service agencies and in the healthcare sector as well. In some cases the services failed to conduct adequate background checks. In other cases the services conducted background checks, but by the time they were returned no one either bothered to review them or overlooked some damning information.
As I remarked on one of my blog postings on December 14th, 2009, Temp Nursing Firms Unhealthy for Background Checks and Hiring Practices, there are many egregious occasions where nurses with substance abuse problems, felony convictions, or records as criminal sex offenders, moved around from state to state to find gainful employment in spite of their background histories. Temporary staffing agencies worked hard to get them hired. Either the temp agencies did not conduct background checks or did such a perfunctory job that many nurses with criminal convictions were allowed to slip through the cracks.
Now the Los Angeles Times reports that its joint study with ProPublica has initiated a concentrated effort by the California State Board of Registered Nursing to fingerprint its job applicants and conduct background checks, before allowing them to be hired. Results show that dozens of Registered Nurses have been convicted of serious crimes ranging from murder to sex offenses. According to the Times article, the Licensing Board either didn’t know about the nurses’ convictions or didn’t act on them once they did.
The joint study from he Times and ProPublica found that in 115 cases the state had not sought to discipline nurses until they acquired three or more convictions. It also shows that many of the convictions were for misdemeanors, ranging from drunken driving to petty theft and fraud. There were in all 1900 such cases and 1,300 were closed without the state taking action.
There are a number of reasons for this lack of oversight. Technology needs to be upgraded, and databases need to be updated. And most of all, responsible parties have to actually conduct these background checks and then review the results when they are returned. We can blame some of the lackadaisical attitude on budget restrictions due to a bad economy. We can attribute it to the fat different public service agencies haven’t adjusted to the fact this is a different age and the people they hire, regardless of their position, are not necessarily candidates for a Norman Rockwell painting. But then you can also attribute it to the fact that staffing agencies don’t bother conducting background checks and people don’t bother reviewing them once they are returned.
Realize, too, there are nearly 140,000 nurses registered in California. Proportionately speaking, this is a relatively small percentage that have criminal convictions. But still, these nurses are the people the public trusts with its well being and its valuables. We wouldn’t be so trusting if it was, say, someone off the street without nursing credentials. But the fact that they are Registered Nurses makes us want to trust them. We are usually sick and vulnerable when we require their services, and psychologically speaking we want to put our hands in someone we can count on. It’sno smallt hing to fear they will mistreat us, rob us, and steal our drugs.
Ghana Banks are going to conduct background checks. That is if Board Chairman of the ARB Apex Bank has his way. According to Graphic Ghana, Dr. Samuel Dufu has advised the directors of rural and community banks (RCBs) to run background checks on employment candidates in sensitive positions in order to avoid cyberfraud, armed robbery, and assorted criminal activities.
As anyone who has conducted background checks from employment candidates well understands, Dr. Dufu has advised the board to “spare the hardship,” as much of it is avoidable through the use of the database of staff members with questionable character.
This is wise advice from the Apex Bank Chairman. Most employers have already befallen their own share of woes and don’t have to be reminded of the advantages and the cost effectiveness of conducting background checks. A good preemployment screening program will help prevent such costly and embarrassing situations as employee theft, workplace violence and the exposure of your proprietary information and sensitive databases.
Dr. Dufu has offered wise advice. The smart employer will heed it.