Categories
Background Checks Human Resources Miscellany

Shoplifting rings–the Scourge or Retailers

There is a new term for shoplifting rings–ORC, or Organized Retail Crime.  Nasty Stuff.   Retailers are having a tough time preventing this highly organized and sophisticated method of retail theft.  Organized boosters do not just steal the big stuff, but the smaller and seemingly incidental items they can resell within the underground market.

According to the article on ABC–“Tide detergent is currently a hot target because it is compact, expensive and easy to sell on the streets for profit, police said. The Street name: “liquid gold.”

“Sometimes we get rings that just do alcohol,” Lee said. “And then we get some that do just meat and seafood.”

Investigators say boosters move the loot for cents on the dollar to fencing operations — the black market resellers of the stolen goods — which sell the stolen merchandise in plain sight in stores. Boosters, fencers, Mr. Bigs, all of those involved in these shoplifting operations can potentially make millions a year from boosting and re-selling stolen goods.”

According to the article, annual losses to retail shrinkage are as high as $37 Billion.

Police are cracking down on the  boosters.   There are raids galore and secret warehouse are filled with contraband confiscated from the raids.

Categories
Background Checks preemployment screening Recruiting Staffing Uncategorized

Nurse in Western Pennsylvania Hospitals Live in Fear of Workplace Violence

Over the years, I have written and commented on issues involving workplace violence.   One such article was entitled…”If You Want to Decrease the Chance of Workplace Violence, Have an Employee Firing Protocol Established.”  The article explains, as the title suggests, that this is sound advice.

It is no secret anymore that a large number of employees live in fear of workplace violence and workplace bullying.  The violence can come from job hazards as it comes from, say, taxi drivers and retail staff.  Or it can come from within the job, either through patients, as the most frequent case for healthcare workers, or from managers and staff members, or agitated relatives and lovers who intrude upon the workplace to raise havoc.

None of this is good for employment morale.  There are esteem issues, a notable decline in productivity, and of course the threat of real injury and the subsequent liability issues.

This article comes from TribLive.  It discusses the different cases of assaults and violent episodes that the nurses in Western Pennsylvania Hospitals must encounter as part of their daily routine.   No fun, for sure.

According to the article…”

Thomas’ experience is similar to that of many ER nurses surveyed during the past four years by the national Emergency Nurses Association, half of whom said they had been physically or verbally abused at work during the past week.

Of that, about 12 percent suffered physical abuse, while about 42 percent suffered verbal abuse, said Lisa Wolf, director of the group’s Institute for Emergency Nursing Research.”

Read more: http://triblive.com/news/westmoreland/3423102-74/hospital-emergency-health#ixzz2SomJpF5k

 

Categories
Background Checks Human Resources Miscellany preemployment screening Staffing Uncategorized

Top Employee Performances are Much More Productive and Tend to Be Friends With the Same Type of Candidates

Dr. John Sullivan, in an article on ERE.Net addresses how top performers are really just that, being as much as four times as productive as the average worker.   Top performing employees also tend to hang with other top performing employees and provide referrals for job applicants of a similar caliber.

Here is but part of what Sullivan had to write…”Fortunately, a recent research study covering several industries demonstrated that top performers do in fact make higher quality referrals. The University of California/Berkeley study, “The Value of Hiring through Referrals” highlighted the output and profit impact differential between referrals that emanated from high, average, and low-performing employees. The study allowed for a ROI calculation because it included both the added costs of the referrals as well as the positive business impacts created by more effective hires. Conclusions that I have drawn from this research include:

  • Referral hires produce more – Hires from referrals produce approximately 25 percent more profit impact than hires from other sources.
  • Top performer referrals produce three times more – A referral from a top performer who is hired will produce nearly three times more profit impact for the firm compared to the referred worker from a below average performer. A top performer referral who is hired will have a 90 percent greater profit impact than the average referral.
  • Higher retention — Referred workers are between 10 percent and 30 percent less likely to quit than workers hired from other sources.”
Categories
Background Checks Economy Human Resources Miscellany Staffing

Colorado Becomes Ninth State to Put Constraints on Employment Credit Reports

As some believe that conducting employment credit reports as a background check for employment screening may be discriminatory, affecting minorities, mainly, and those who suffered in the economic downturn, Colorado has become the ninth state to prohibit credit reports for employment purposes.

According to the notice distributed by the law firm Seyfarth and Shaw….”

Two types of employers are generally exempt from the law’s prohibitions: (1) banks or financial institutions; and (2) employers who are required by law to procure consumer credit information. These two classes of employers are permitted to obtain and use credit information for all their employees, regardless of specific positions or responsibilities and need only abide by the law’s additional adverse action requirements (detailed below).

The vast majority of employers, however, are prohibited from requesting or using an applicant or employees’ consumer credit information unless that information is “substantially related to the employee’s current or potential job.” The statute defines the substantially related language to mean one of two types of positions:

1. A position that constitutes executive or management personnel (or officers or employees who constitute professional staff to executive and management personnel) and which involves one or more of the following:

  • sets the direction or control of a business, division, unit or an agency of the business;
  • owes a fiduciary responsibility to the employer;
  • has access to customers’, employees’ or the employer’s financial information; or
  • has the authority to make payments, collect debts or enter into contracts.

2. A position that involves contracts with defense, intelligence, national security, or space agencies of the federal
government.

Even for these positions where credit information is “substantially related to the employee’s current or potential job”, an employer must satisfy two additional requirements before it uses and applicant or employee’s consumer credit information in making an employment decision. First, the employer must have a “bona fide purpose” for requesting or using the information in the credit report. Second, the employer must disclose its bona fide purpose to the applicant employee. Notably, the law is silent as to when this disclosure must be made and does not define the term “bona fide purpose.”

Also, when consumer credit information is “substantially related to the employee’s  current or potential job” an employer may, but is not required to, afford the applicant or employee an opportunity to explain any unusual or mitigating circumstances (e.g. error, lay off, identity theft, medical expenses etc. ).”