Police Checks on Staff: Keep Your Business Safe

It's a Tuesday morning after a long, holiday weekend. Upon returning to the office, you discover that a break-in has occurred over the weekend and sensitive client files including financial information, company bank account and other passwords, all of the petty cash, and more have been stolen. What's worse, after investigating the break-in police determine that an employee, who is now nowhere to be found, committed the crime. 

This was a trusted employee who had been given possession of keys to the office, lock codes, and other information which enabled him to easily gain access to the office and sensitive information unnoticed and out-of-hours. Moreover, upon further investigation, police turn up a record of similar past offences this employee has committed.

This company wrongly trusted the employee and what he told them about his past, duped by his honesty in revealing certain other unrelated minor offences, believing him when he said he had altered his behaviour and had not reoffended recently. Unfortunately, this wasn't the case.

Keeping Your Business Safe

All of this could have been avoided if a simple police history check had been conducted before hiring this individual. The employer would then have been aware of his previous convictions and, likely, would not have made the decision to hire him, or, if they had, would not have entrusted him with keys to the office or other sensitive information.
What would it take your business to recover from a similar situation. Would you ever be able to regain your clients' trust and recoup the lost business that might result? Wouldn't you wish you had been able to do something to prevent this?

While potential employees and others may complain about requests to provide a police history check, as a business owner, hiring manager, company director, etc. your real responsibility in a hiring situation is to the company and your current employees. Asking for a police check is not overly burdensome for applicants when one considers the potential risk to the business of not understanding their employees' criminal histories. Moreover, it should not overly delay the hiring process as most police checks can be obtained swiftly, within a day or two of application.

Avoiding the Worst

During the interview and selection process, businesses who feel that they might be put at risk were their employees to have a criminal record should make it a policy to request a police check from all potential hires before a hiring decision is reached. In this way, they can become aware of any criminal offences which they feel would preclude the person from working for them. When hiring individuals, and thereby placing trust in them that they will be good, honest employees and moreover that they are law-abiding citizens, a company understandably should be able to have assurances that
they can indeed trust them.

This does not mean that all people with a criminal history will be prevented from obtaining work with companies that require police checks before hiring. Oftentimes, the previous offences committed by the individual seeking employment will be minor and would likely not affect the person in an employment situation. Companies must be careful to consider the types of offences committed, how long ago they were committed and whether there is a pattern of criminal behaviour when they assess whether to hire someone with a criminal record.

However, businesses should be able to choose to hire only those people without an adverse criminal history or those whose previous convictions would not affect them in their current employment. Requiring potential employees to provide a police check can be a valuable first line of defence for the company's security and peace of mind.