FMLA fraud can devastate a company, but companies should protect the integrity of their investigations to protect themselves.
The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) provides working families balance to their lives when their circumstances take a turn. Whether it’s caring for new life in the household—such as a newborn or a foster child—or to care for an ailing relative, the 1993 act protects employees from being terminated from their jobs when they must take an extended absence for a specific set of reasons. However, abuses of FMLA are extremely common in the American workforce. While suspicions of FMLA abuse should be taken seriously by employers, companies must conduct thorough and unbiased investigations before terminating any employees. Businesses who do not follow protocol can open themselves up to expensive litigation.
In addition to protecting employees from termination during an extended leave, FMLA also requires their various insurance coverage remain in effect. This protection can be guaranteed for up to 12 weeks. According to the Department of Labor:
FMLA is designed to help employees balance their work and family responsibilities by allowing them to take reasonable unpaid leave for certain family and medical reasons. It also seeks to accommodate the legitimate interests of employers and promote equal employment opportunity for men and women.
FMLA applies to all public agencies, all public and private elementary and secondary schools, and companies with 50 or more employees. These employers must provide an eligible employee with up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave each year for any of the following reasons:
the birth and care of the newborn child of an employee;
placement with the employee of a child for adoption or foster care;
to care for an immediate family member (spouse, child, or parent) with a serious health condition; or
medical leave when the employee is unable to work because of a serious health condition.
The use of FMLA within these guidelines (with some exceptions) is designed to protect hard-working men and women from losing their jobs when their family suddenly requires their attention. Life can change so fast, and employees can rest easy knowing their jobs will be waiting for them when they are able to return in top-performing condition.
According to Charlie Plumb, an attorney who represents clients in all phases of management, abuse of this protection should be investigated, provided the employer has an “honest suspicion.” He goes on to say, “This honest suspicion standard is really intended to protect the employer against a claim they are interfering against FMLA leave and/or being retaliatory.”
A familiar scenario is one where an employee has been granted leave under FMLA for a serious illness or injury. The employer then happens to see posts from the employee on social media having fun out with friends, exercising, or driving. The employer might think, “If they’re well enough to do these things, they must be well enough to work.” While this might sound like an open and shut case from the employer’s point of view, Allen Smith of The Society of Human Resources Management, provides an example where this philosophy proved problematic:
“Joan Casciari, an attorney with Seyfarth Shaw in Chicago, said she handled a case that involved an employee who was put on FMLA leave for depression. The employer later discovered, through surveillance, she was doing Christmas shopping with her family and having a wonderful time. But her doctor confirmed “retail therapy” was consistent with her condition and the fact she could shop did not mean she did not require FMLA leave.”
Luckily for the employer in this anecdote, they did their due diligence and consulted a medical professional who could corroborate the circumstances of her FMLA qualifications. Some employers are far hastier. When employers do not conduct comprehensive and objective investigations into suspicious FMLA claims, they can open themselves up to lawsuits that can be devastatingly expensive and a public relations nightmare.
Vigilance of adherence to the guidelines of FMLA becomes manageable when Human Resource directors keep an eye out for certain patterns of behavior, such as absence patterns, especially when they coincide with non-work events (holidays or something personal that they may have mentioned in the past). Employers should also be suspicious of absences directly contradicting any medical certification in frequency or duration.
Once an employer has a reasonable suspicion of FMLA abuse, they should most certainly investigate. However, internal investigations into these kinds of abuses can be very messy for Human Resources and upper management. The aforementioned scenario involving “retail therapy” could have been a disaster if the company had not done their due diligence. Some employers are not so diligent.
Another scenario involving a maintenance worker at a nursing home and rehabilitation center panned out much differently. The employee in question noticed his superior was exhibiting a pattern of absence he found suspicious. He began reviewing surveillance footage to compare to his own personal log of her comings and goings in order to prove she was abusing company time. After discovering the independent investigation, the superior served a series of performance adjustments to the employee before terminating him. The termination came after the employee had submitted an FMLA request. The court found the dates of his termination tied in too closely with his request for FMLA, allowing the employee to take the case to trial.
Scenarios like these are why Human Resources and management should 1) be vigilant of FMLA abuse, and 2) conduct a thorough and unbiased investigation in order to ensure the company is protected from litigation. Many companies choose to handle investigations internally in order to minimize the amount of exposure. However, internal investigations spearheaded by current members of staff, will not only disrupt daily operations, but can also have negative effects like the case of the nursing home. The employee conducting his own investigation may have had honest suspicions of his superior’s misconduct, but he was certainly not a unbiased source to investigate.
Private investigators are probative routes often overlooked when a company has an internal investigation. There are many circumstances under which companies do not want to give up control over an internal investigation, and a private investigator is the definition of a third-party. However, the objectivity of a private investigator is the number one reason why companies should consider them as an option. The personal biases of the persons involved in the previous examples caused the investigation to go south. As an independent contractor, a private investigator’s only loyalty is to the truth. They are vital to ensuring an investigation is a transparent expedition for the truth. This goes a long way towards protecting a business from subsequent lawsuits or bad press.
When handling an investigation internally, employers are limited to what surveillance they can attain from their own equipment or social media. Private investigators are licensed to track individuals and photograph their activity in public. Persons who fraudulently claim to be out for injury can be photographed doing tasks directly contradicting their FMLA claim, like yardwork or lifting heavy groceries. In addition to tracking their public movements, private investigators may also conduct undercover operations in order to investigate any frauds. They are invaluable in this regard as they are not known to those within the company. Whether you’re looking for an FMLA weekender or an FMLA moonlighter, if someone has made a fraudulent FMLA claim, a private investigator is the most-equipped professional to prove or disprove the suspicion.
Every week there are new stories in the news about teenagers who have either run away or been kidnapped. When parents see these tragedies play out through media coverage, there’s usually one common thread running through their minds, “This could not happen to my child.” Despite statistics on the demographics most often affected by missing or runaway teens, no family is immune. Parents of a missing child or teen will most certainly have never found themselves in these frightful circumstances before and be at a loss for how to proceed. In addition to filing a report with police, the parents might also consider hiring a private investigator to conduct an independent, concurrent investigation. Finding missing teens is not always the speciality of an individual law enforcement agency, which means your child could fall through the cracks. Finding missing teens is not easy, especially when they do not want to be found. That’s why many families rely on the independent tenacity of private investigators to find their missing teens. Should you hire a private investigator to locate your missing or runaway child?
An Overwhelming Task
The Office of Justice Programs estimates the first 48 hours after your child goes missing are the most crucial in the timeline of any investigation. During these moments, your instinct might be to go find the child yourself or help conduct searches; however, as a parent or guardian of a missing child, your information is the most crucial. A 1982 congressional mandate requires law enforcement to immediately take a report following the disappearance of a child under the age of 18. However, recent reports estimate the excess of some 800,000 missing persons cases reported every year, 85-90% of those cases are individuals under the age of 18. What this statistic tells us is law enforcement, in most parts of the country, are overwhelmed by a caseload (with some departments averaging over 40 cases per investigator) leaving your missing child as a file amidst a stack of equally devastating missing child cases. As law enforcement agencies across the country remain stretched, missing child cases—especially ones where the child appears to have run away—are not always the first priority, as investigators attempt to perform a triage regarding which case requires their attention the most. Private investigators only average between three and four cases at any given time, meaning your child’s case will be at the top of their list of priorities. During the crucial FIRST 48 hours, having a private investigator treat your case as a priority can be the difference between acquiring invaluable information and losing a lead.
Constitutional Red Tape
One of the glowing advantages of hiring a private investigator to find your missing child or teen is the fact PIs possess far more autonomy than the average law enforcement officer or investigator. For instance, when a suspect has been identified, law enforcement often must secure a warrant for them to be tracked as the investigation unfolds. Paperwork and bureaucracy within the chain of command can cause the wheels of justice to turn slowly in regards to local or state law enforcement. Not only are PI’s not required to file this sort of paperwork, but they can also do so without the supervision of a governing law enforcement administration, so the case progression is not stalled for lack of warrant or administration approval.
The Binds of Jurisdiction
With a private investigator conducting an independent, concurrent investigation, there will never be any issues of jurisdiction when pursuing leads. Say your family lives in Indiana, but while on an out-of-state family vacation, your child goes missing in a crowd. As missing and abducted children across state or even international borders, local law enforcement exponentially lose power to follow leads maybe illuminating the child’s whereabouts. It is also not uncommon for two or more law enforcement agencies to enter a tug of war when it comes to who has jurisdiction over a particular case based on the specific circumstances. This can lead to the loss of leads or time as agencies hash out the details. Private investigators are never bound by jurisdictional bureaucracy. They can travel between states following the trail of a missing child, all without having to file any paperwork or obtain special permissions from superiors.
While law enforcement may have a wealth of experience and exclusive tools at their disposal, it’s important to remember that these civil servants are often overwhelmed with an immense case-load and can only do so much when it comes to the constitutional and jurisdictional boundaries they cannot cross. Private investigators have the expertise and similar tools of law enforcement, while also having the time to treat your case as a top priority.
Carie McMichael is the Communications and Media Specialist for Lauth Investigations International, writing about investigative topics such as missing persons and corporate investigations. For more information on missing persons topics, please visit our website.
5 Ways Private Investigators Benefit Human Resources
Our brains are one of the defining parts of our anatomy that makes up who we are as humans, but without vital organs such as the heart, we cannot live to become who we were meant to be. The brain sends signals to the heart to pump vital fluids and maintain the health and fitness of the body in order to grow and develop. In a capitalist world of business and commerce, if a CEO is the brains of a company, certainly Human Resources is the heart. Before any employee can enter a company, they must go through HR, just as vital fluids must pass through the heart before reaching their destination. It is important for Human Resource representatives to be armed with knowledge to allow them to bring in the best and the brightest to contribute to their company. One of the ways HR can rest easy in their hires is by retaining the services of a private investigator to voire dire the candidate base, maintain a healthy work environment, and prevent employee fraud that would damage the company.
Hiring the Right People
If proper precautions are not taken, hiring a candidate who might soon be terminated can be very costly to a company. Even if the employee is making minimum wage at the time of their termination, a study from the Society for Human Resource Management estimated it can cost as much as $3500 to replace that employee. The higher the level of employment, the costs exponentially increase, with other estimates claiming that it could cost as much as 150% for middle-level employees and 400% for high-level. Therefore, hiring the correct employee on the first attempt can be critical. As the heart of the company, Human Resources are often overwhelmed with a myriad of tasks, which can make the vetting of potential employees fall lower and lower on the list of priorities. This is where the services of a private investigator will prove prudent. Private investigators can use their time and skills to perform background checks on employees, painting a clearer picture for HR representatives. This helps ensure the hiring of proper employees, which minimizes turnover, and greases the wheels of progress within a company.
Exposing Workplace Theft
A report by CBS News estimated that a typical business will lose 5% of annual revenue to employee theft. Employee Theft Solutions, a division of the Shulman Center for Compulsive Theft and Spending, has estimated that nearly one third of all corporate bankruptcies were the result of unfettered employee theft. Even more alarming, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce estimated that 75% of employed persons will steal from their workplace or employer and will continue to steal if not exposed. It is a staggering statistic that should garner scrutiny from the Human Resources department with regards to their own workforce. Bearing in mind that investigating the behavior of a single prospective employee could be very time consuming, imagine having to vet an entire staff in order to uncover a source of theft. With an average of 3-5 cases at any given time, private investigators have the time and access to resources that can help expose the perpetrator of theft in a company. In addition to checking security systems and interviewing witnesses, private investigators also have the advantage of being able to conduct undercover investigations in order to squeeze out the source of theft. These investigative services can help reinforce the wall that prevents employees from devastating a company with fraud.
Fraudulent Compensation Claims
A significant portion of the costs incurred annually by employees is attributed to worker’s compensation claims. As a member of Human Resources, it might be easy to trust every single worker compensation claim that comes through the pipeline. After all, yourself or a former superior may have hired the employee, and you trust one another’s respective judgement. However, it is naïve to assume every claim will be legitimate. Worker compensation claims can cost companies hundreds of thousands of dollars per fiscal year depending on the volume of claims. A recent statistic by the Employee Benefit Research Institute in 2014 estimated that it can cost companies as much as a $1.00 per every $100 of employee wages, which can add up very quickly. This is where a private investigator can be a godsend amidst pending litigation. Often in worker compensation claims, interviews are required with the claimant to get their version of events that led up to their injury. While members of Human Resources have many gifts, they may not be skilled in extracting the truth from an employee who might be committing a fraud. Private investigators work to get to the truth every day and can assist the HR department in protecting themselves within the letter of the law. With the resources and due-diligence of a PI vetting the claim, businesses can rest easy knowing that the claims coming through the Human Resources department have merit.
HR Investigation Integrity
With the growing problem of drugs in the workplace and the rise of the #MeToo movement, businesses are having more use for private investigators than ever before. A recent article by CNBC details how a rising number of businesses are hiring private investigators in order to identify predators in their workforce before an employee comes forward with claims of sexual harassment, discrimination, or threats.
“An ounce of prevention is really worth a pound of cure here, because the cost of potential drop in stock price, legal and PR cost — the possibility of regulators getting involved and regulating industries — they are enormous compared with the relatively modest expenditure in hiring folks like us in order to rule out this behavior,” said Nardello, CEO of Nardello & Co.
In addition to identifying these problems to save a business money, it is also imperative that any internal Human Resources department conducts a thorough, prompt, and lawful investigation. Just as private investigators can use their skills to identify predators, they can also protect any HR personnel from compromising the integrity of an investigation, protecting them from legal liability.
An Objective Eye
Human Resources: It’s in the name. Whenever there is a problem between coworkers, a discrepancy in payroll, or simple maintenance of a healthy work environment, the human resources department is where employees will turn to address issues in their job. And while members of HR do their best to solve these problems from an administrating and mediating position, they cannot always be objective. After all, HR is just as much a part of the workforce as any other employee, and all of the same implications of camaraderie and friendship can apply. By the same token, HR can also have negative relationships with the subjects of their investigations, which can influence their judgement. These biases can have a toxic effect on office morale, and employees might not feel as though they can trust Human Resources to be fair and impartial when addressing workplace issues. When there is no trust, the important relationship between HR and other departments breaks down. As is the case with many investigative scenarios, a private investigator is always the perfect second set of eyes to have when examining these issues. Without a stake in the outcome of any internal investigation, private investigators can remain unbiased as they conduct interviews, collect evidence, and reach a conclusion in regards to the veracity of any claim.
It is important for any Human Resources department to safeguard themselves against the many challenges—both internal and external—they encounter on a daily basis in their company. Retaining the services of a private investigator can go a long way to taking pressure off an already busy department, as well as providing an objective third-party perspective that will positively benefit companies as they grow and develop. If CEOs are the brains of a company and the Human Resources department is the heart, certainly a private investigator would be the immune system; identifying problems and staving off possible infection in order to maintain the health and productivity of any work environment.
Elizabeth Holmes was once the shooting star of Silicon Valley. With a lifelong hatred of needles, she set out to turn the world of healthcare on its ear by developing a more efficient and inexpensive way to draw and test blood in order to screen for serious diseases. In a world where access to affordable healthcare is a hot-button issue, Holmes was slated to become a revolutionary of her own making, with Forbes magazine dubbing her the “youngest self-made woman billionaire.” Now, Holmes is a pariah in Silicon Valley and heads are left spinning in the wake of the Securities and Exchanges Commission having issued a 24-page document revealing just how her duplicity left investors in Theranos’ research out $9 billion dollars.
To litigators and legal commentators, Holmes’ fall from grace is a familiar narrative. Intention to defraud aside, they say the roads in Silicon Valley are paved with ambitious young entrepreneurs who are more than willing to stretch the truth in order to sell their business. They have the determination to succeed and the naivety their deception will be forgiven once their investors are flush with wealth from returns. Since this has happened before and will likely happen again, how was Holmes able to mislead investors under the radar of Theranos’ board of directors? A breakdown of the board’s composition might hold the answer.
Prior to the release of the SEC complaint, the members of the Theranos board of directors had impressive backgrounds that might leave little doubt in their abilities to supervise the good of the company. There were former politicians such as U.S. senators and former cabinet members, who dealt with high-stakes situations every day in their capacities. There were former executives with previous experience in making decisions and placing trust in competent individuals. But despite their differences in resume, they all had one glaring similarity: They were all white men, over the age of 65. Research has shown while their backgrounds might have been impressive, their homogenous nature may have played a huge role in preventing them from identifying Holmes’ fraud before it was too late.
According to Prof. Andras Tilcsik, who holds the Canada Research Chair in strategy, organizations, and society at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, diverse boards are what prevent problems in large companies, “Companies with more gender diversity on their boards, for example, are less likely to reissue financial statements because of error or fraud. Diverse groups also tend to consider more factors when making a decision. Racially mixed juries deliberate longer, share more information, discuss a wider range of relevant factors and even make fewer mistakes when recalling facts about a case. Ironically, lab experiments show that while homogeneous groups do less well on complex tasks, they report feeling more confident about their decisions.” What the research is telling us is this: The more a person looks like us, the more we are willing to trust them. The attention to detail that might have been shown by a more outwardly diverse board was not shown by the Theranos board of directors in the case of Elizabeth Holmes. The similarities shared between members of the Theranos board likely created a false sense of security and allowed Holmes’ deceptions to go unnoticed.
Diversity in expertise prevents boards from becoming too comfortable with business practices and makes them open to new ideas. Given the research on homogenized groups, it is reasonable to think this group of white men with an average age of 76 may never have questioned the veracity of Holmes’ research and her promises to deliver the next big thing in medical technology. This has happened before and is likely to happen again, because while the source of the fraud is often dealt with and forgotten, there is no examination of how board composition can enable fraud.
Carie McMichael is the Communications and Media Specialist for Lauth Investigations International, writing about investigative topics such as missing persons and corporate investigations. To learn more about what we do, please visit our website.
Why Private Investigators Have an Advantage Over Police
For months, the family of 5-year-old Lucas Hernandez wondered if they would ever have answers in his mysterious disappearance. On the day he disappeared, he was left in the care of his father’s girlfriend, Emily Glass. In the missing persons report, Glass told investigators on February 17th, 2018, she saw Lucas playing in his room around three in the afternoon. She then took a shower and fell asleep. When she awoke around six in the evening, Lucas was nowhere to be found.
Law enforcement in Wichita investigated for months, unearthing no credible leads into Lucas’ disappearance. Months later, on May 24th, locals were shocked after a private investigator blew the case wide open by informing law enforcement Emily Glass had led them to the decomposing remains of little Lucas under a nearby bridge. Why would Glass, after dealing with law enforcement for months, only then break her silence regarding her knowledge of the little boy’s body? The answer is as simple as this: Private investigators have advantages law enforcement do not when it comes to conducting concurrent independent investigations in criminal and missing persons cases.
So how is a private investigator’s approach different from the approach of a local, state, or federal law enforcement agency? The first thing to consider is the caseload of most law enforcement agencies. From the moment an initial report is made, in both criminal and missing persons cases, law enforcement have the meticulous and overwhelming task of gathering evidence to build a case that will secure justice on behalf of the victims and the state. Crime scenes need to be mined for evidence by medical examiners and crime scene technicians. Detectives and other investigators need to canvass witnesses—sometimes dozens of people—in the area who might have seen or heard something. Now imagine the workload of one case multiplied by 40 or 50 times. An audit conducted in Portland Oregon in 2007 reviewed law enforcement data from Portland itself, and nine other surrounding cities, to conclude the average caseload for a detective in Portland was a median of 54. This is compared to a 5-year average of 56 cases. Knowing statistics like these are similar in law enforcement agencies all across the country, it’s easy to see how the progress of cases might slow to a crawl. Agencies are overwhelmed, and this is where private investigators have the advantage. Private investigators may only handle one or two cases at a time, giving them their full focus and attention. Wichita law enforcement might have faced similar challenges of an overwhelming caseload when it came to investigating Lucas Hernandez’s disappearance. An article released by the Wichita Eagle in mid-December of 2017 revealed, as of publication, there were still ten homicides from the year 2017 remaining unsolved as the new year approached.
Another compelling advantage for private investigators might initially sound like a disadvantage: Private investigators have no powers of arrest. It seems counter-intuitive that a private investigator may use the same tools as law enforcement, ask the same questions, and may even come to the same conclusion as law enforcement without the ability to arrest a suspect for the crime. However, the case of Hernandez showcased exactly why a private investigator—and their inability to arrest—broke the case wide open. Jim Murray of Star Investigations told KMBC News in Kansas, “We’re less of a threat sometimes to people that we’re talking to because we have no powers of arrest,” said Jim. “We can’t arrest them.” This could explain why Emily Glass finally led a private investigator to Lucas’s body, because she knew they could not put handcuffs on her in that moment.
Unfortunately, family members and locals will never have the truth about what happened to Lucas. In the wake of the private investigator’s discovery, autopsy reports were found to be inconsistent with what Glass told both police and the PI, but before the People could build a case against her, Glass was found dead from an apparent suicide. However, were it not for the efforts of the private investigator, Lucas’s father may never have had answers in his son’s disappearance.
Carie McMichael is the Communications and Media Specialist for Lauth Investigations International, writing about investigative topics such as missing persons and corporate investigations. To learn more about what we do, please visit our website.
It is estimated 30% of employees steal from their employer.
Most of us have dealt with a thief during our lifetime. Devious and sneaky, some thieves behave as if stealing is an art. It is usually a theft exposing them; however, many times, they can strike numerous times before getting caught. When theft happens in the workplace, it can not only be a costly lesson but the cause of a business failing.
An estimated 30% of employees steal from their workplace affecting all types of businesses. For instance, if you are running a restaurant with $1 million sales annually, at only 4% theft within the company, your company would be losing $40,000 a year!
Employee theft costs U.S. businesses over $200 billion in annual losses. Not only are companies trying to prevent the public from stealing items, inventory, assets, and ideas from a business, they must also combat thieves on the inside. Unfortunately, 75% of employee-related crimes go undetected.
Theft can take many forms, such as: stealing money, embezzlement, unauthorized use of business or customer identity, and theft of intellectual property, such as cases of patent or trademark infringement.
Combating Theft is Knowing How Employee Theft Occurs.
Cash
Employees who have access to a cash register is the most common way employees steal from companies. If unsecured, petty cash drawers or boxes, can be an easy target for thieves.
In addition, an employee can quote a higher price than the actual price of an item and keep the difference at the point of sale.
If employees have access to credit card information or checks, theft can happen as easily as sticking a few checks inside a folder, costing the owner thousands before it is detected.
Checks and Fraud
Most banks do not verify a signature on a company check making it very easy to sign and cash a check.
Credit card fraud is a number one threat to companies and consumers because most credit card holders admittedly do not check each line item on their credit card statement.
According to the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), companies with less than 100 employees, lose approximately $155,000 as a result of fraud each year, a much higher rate than large companies.
Payroll
Employees may often perform actions and falsify records for work they didn’t do, such as requesting reimbursement for travel and other expenses unrelated to work. Employees may also set up fake payroll accounts for workers who have been terminated or retired. Creative thievery abounds.
Time Sheets
Time theft or “Buddy Punching” is a very popular way timesheets may easily be falsified. Individuals complete this theft by having one employee punch another employee in or out for the other.
Excessive breaks, malingering, surfing the Internet, chatting with employees or taking personal phone calls are other ways time theft occurs. While some of these things may not at first be thought of as stealing, all these actions, or inactions, can affect the bottom line and be taking advantage of an employer.
Vendor Accounts
Thieving employees will set up fake vendor accounts, submit phony invoices and issue checks for the false vendor. These checks can then be signed over to themselves and deposited. In addition, a variation would be paying a vendor $500 and writing a check to themselves, expensing the entire $500 to the vendor.
Merchandise
Loss of inventory can happen in the merchandise distribution process but can also happen before merchandise is made available to the public. Many times, employees will take items from a warehouse or newly arrived items before they are scanned into inventory software. Employees have even been known to steal entire shipping trucks containing merchandise headed to their employer’s company.
Supplies
Some employees steal smaller items such as typical office supplies, but furniture and equipment are not off limits for a thief.
Information
Many employees steal information to benefit themselves or a competitor. Types of information include: office memoranda, proprietary products, customer lists and/or other confidential data. Theft can occur by email, printing, or copying information to a flash drive or cell phone, or simply carrying it out in a purse or folder.
Sometimes, theft can be subtler, such as luring customers away, purposefully providing poor service, even spreading rumors to damage a company’s reputation and cause a down-turn in business. All are considered losses.
While there are ways to combat theft within your company, ultimately identifying the thief before they are hired is the most effective way to reduce the occurence of theft.
The SBA recommends: “One of the first steps to preventing fraudulent employee behavior is to make the right hiring decision.”
Background checks are a good practice for any employer, large or small, especially for those employees who will be handling cash, high-value merchandise, or have access to sensitive customer or financial data.
For over twenty-years, Thomas Lauth of Lauth Investigations International has been working nationwide and helping educate employers on methods used to combat theft.
“The first and most effective way to address theft in the workplace, is to conduct an extensive background check,” says Lauth. “A background check can provide insight into an individual’s behavior, character, and integrity.”
Which Types of Background Checks Should You Conduct?
According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, upwards to 30% of business failures are caused by employee theft. Thus, conducting effective, extensive background checks helps to mitigate your risk of hiring objectionable or even dangerous employees.
Not all background checks are the same. As you build a profile of your future employee, there are several kinds of background checks you should consider. For example, a criminal background check is different than checking on an individual’s credit score or military service, these require consent. A criminal background check does not require consent; however, some states have laws restricting how you use the information collected during a criminal background check.
Private investigation firms like Lauth Investigations offer complete background checks while helping you comply with the law.
Protecting Your Legal Liability with Background Checks
Smaller businesses often forego background checks for two reasons: 1. A false sense of trust and security developed by business owners working too closely with employees. 2. Most businesses do not understand the legal liabilities associated with the failure to conduct employee screening and background checks.
Any business where employees provide a direct service and interact with customers, such as contractors or daycare providers, is liable if an employee does harm to a customer and the employee has a history of wrongdoing.
A company, big and small. may not recover from this kind of lawsuit.
Choosing the Right Company to Conduct Background Checks
Protecting the interests of your workplace and customers while reducing potential liability is of utmost importance; therefore, it is vital to select a company you can trust to conduct the background screening both efficiently and thoroughly.
While employers can do some background checking of their own, working with an experienced and reputable company can ensure the reliability and thoroughness of the background screening.
Purchasing instant public records found online is not appropriate for conducting potential employee background checks. Most certainly if your hiring decision is based on tpublic record data, your company could land in hot water.
Most public databases do not fact check, clean up or refresh their data providing completely different information than received from an investigative firm experienced in conducting professional, legal and full background screening.
Private investigators have access to databases to determine if a potential employee has a criminal background.
A reputable company providing background screening services will ensure the information you receive is current and accurate.
If a hiring decision is made based upon information found in the background check, in most cases, the company must inform the potential employee of the source used to obtain the information for the background checks (which is where using public databases can get your company in legal trouble).
What can you expect from a professional background check? According to Lauth, it’s all in the details and you pay for what you get. If you want detailed, accurate information, you will choose a Private Investigation Background Search.
Unlike a personal background search using public databases, private investigators have access to several databases providing a variety of information.
Employment history: This search will bring up employment records to include all positions held, making it easier to find discrepancies in a resume. It will also include salaries associated with the positions.
Academic and professional affiliations: Qualifications to include academic history and certification, even if the person did not complete the program.
Criminal records: Including a detailed outline of all criminal activity from traffic warnings and tickets to arrests and convictions. Also, these include jail time served and fines paid.
Financial Standing: Reflects all liens, judgments, bank accounts, current and previous property ownership, repossession of vehicles or other personal property, NSF checks and bankruptcies.
In addition to the typical information received through a personal background check, a private investigator will include:
Worker compensation claims an individual has filed. This can help determine the character of an individual by looking at the number of claims they have filed which could reveal a person is dishonest and fraudulent.
Ascertain causes of accidents or any criminal activity. DMV reports will show accident dates and basic information but do not reflect the cause. Private investigators can provide the cause behind the accident and whether criminal activity was involved.
Information on business and personal partners.
Analysis of all findings.
Relying on an Internet search is risky. A professional background screening will be more in depth than simply entering a name in a database. When a company’s future is at stake, the only way to go to obtain concise information needed to make informed decisions is a professional, private investigations extensive background check.
Unfortunately, family members and locals will never have the truth about what happened to Lucas. In the wake of the private investigator’s discovery, autopsy reports were found to be inconsistent with what Glass told both police and the PI, but before the People could build a case against her, Glass was found dead from an apparent suicide. However, were it not for the efforts of the private investigator, Lucas’s father may never have had answers in his son’s disappearance.
