The first justification is the employment of the very best employee for the position. You are looking for stable employees that will come to work every day, do the job that you hired them to do, and not steal from or hurt you, your other employees, or your customers. You will not find this employee by accident. You will find them only by reviewing all the background information available.

The second justification is to protect your business from "negligent hiring." Negligent hiring generally refers to the hiring of a person that the employer knows or should have known possesses "some attribute of character or prior conduct that would create an undue risk of harm to others in carrying out his or her employment responsibilities." Many negligent hiring cases have been successful where it has been established that the assailant/employee had a record of violent crime.

Scrutinize for any position that allows the employee to endanger people. For example:

• Public contact in isolated situations
• Those without supervision oversight
• Drivers
• Anyone with access to private homes
• Anyone with access to children
• Anyone with authority over others

The third reason to do a background check is that if the person knows you are going to check, then you are more likely to get honest answers. Many times, if the applicants know you are going to do a background check, the people who have something to hide will not even apply.

Stop and ask the questons

• Do you know the background of each of your employees?
• Are you sending a person with a criminal record to a place where they could commit a crime?
• Are you putting yourself, your company and your customers at risk for what you don't know?
• Are you looking for ways to reduce employee turnover?
• Are you looking for ways to reduce employee theft?
• Are you looking for ways to verify information on employee applications?