You probably don’t know who Wendy Adcock is, but right now she’s the focus of a lot of attention in Columbus, Ohio. That’s the home of the Ohio State University (OSU) who hired Adcock in 2005 as an accounts clerk at the university libraries.
The OSU student paper, the Lantern, describes the situation in a story headlined “Adcock’s case reveals flaws in OSU employee background checks.” It might reveal some flaws in your system as well.
When she was accused of stealing $13,500 from the university libraries, it turned out that she had been convicted of stealing $11,000 from a previous employer. The Lantern wants to know how that could happen. The answers should get you thinking about your process.
When Adcock was hired by OSU she hadn’t been convicted of the $11,000 theft. She was still being investigated.
If you look at the report for a criminal background check, you’ll see the word “sentenced.” You won’t see “investigated for” or even “arrested.” That’s because we live in America.
The way we conduct our legal affairs, a person who is charged with a crime or investigated as a suspect is presumed innocent until a court declares that he or she is guilty. That’s a good thing overall, but it’s very likely why Adcock slipped through the cracks at OSU.
It turns out that the university ran a background check on her later, too. It was after the date of the conviction. But the conviction didn’t show up then, either. Most likely that’s because different jurisdictions take different amounts of time to get the results of court proceedings into the national database.
Here’s what you need to do to keep from getting taken by the likes of Wendy Adcock. First, make a criminal background check part of your routine hiring process, especially for people who will be handing money or sensitive information. That will catch most of your potential problems.
Second, ask about criminal activity on your application. Make it a firing offense to lie about anything on the application. That gives you backup.
Third, do a background check on anyone who changes jobs internally and begins handling money or sensitive information. That’s really like a new hire for that sort of position.
And, fourth, do background checks on anyone in a sensitive position at least once a year. Circumstances change. You need to know if they do.