Do background checks on prospective tenants for the good of the community
In Pikeville, KY, a community group is “urging property owners within Pikeville city limits to help build a safer community by doing background checks on potential renters“. Makes sense to me.
What’s unique about this story is that this is not a law enforcement agency or landlord’s association that’s urging the background checks. It’s a community group. They think that having landlords do background checks on prospective tenants is good for the community.
They’re right. You may have heard of the “Broken Windows” theory first named in an article by James Wilson and George Kelling. The theory says that neighborhoods don’t go bad all at once.
First there are some broken windows that don’t get fixed. Then trash starts getting thrown on the sidewalk instead of put into trashcans. The downward spiral starts with small things.
And those small things often start with tenants who are criminals. They don’t just trash your place and jack up your maintenance and repair costs. They bring in their friends who aren’t exactly model citizens, either.
One cop once put it this way to me, “Look,” he said, “Criminals have this whole lifestyle that says they can do what they want regardless of how it affects other people. Do you really think that some guy who’ll steal your wallet or break into your house will pause to throw trash into the proper container? Not likely. He’ll throw it on the ground.”
Here’s the bottom line. Doing the kind of background criminal and credit checks that are good for your […]
Checking out the coaches in Bucks County
In Bucks County, PA, the Bucks County Courier Times reports on how “Parents urge board to make background checks a must.” Here’s what’s going on.
Pennsylvania laws require employees of schools and daycare centers submit to background checks. It requires foster parents to get checked. The idea is that people in those positions have privileged access to children.
But the state laws don’t cover coaches and other people working with sports teams, even though they have the same access to children. That’s why the Upper Southampton Board of Supervisors took up the issue and wound up passing a resolution to require background checks on people who work with children in the sports organizations that use public property.
The local sports organizations showed up at the Supervisors’ meeting to voice support for the resolution. But they had some concerns that “the background check results might take too long, not allowing coaches to be out on the field for practices and games.”
That shouldn’t be a concern. First, getting the appropriate background checks is an easy and straightforward process these days. Second, getting the checks done in time is more a matter or administrative procedure than anything. Third, it’s more important to keep kids safe than it is to get coaches on the field.
Finally, the Supervisors allowed for the fact that an organization might be caught short on time in exceptional circumstances. According to the article “if the activity has started, the organization needs to obtain the required clearance as soon as possible.”
The regulations are […]
Background checks can help prevent fraud in your small business
Recently SMB Finance magazine published a couple of articles about fraud and small businesses. SMB Finance is a bi-monthly magazine that provides news and resources specifically for financial executives in small and midsized businesses. The magazine is not available online.
One article pointed out that small businesses lose five percent of their annual revenue to fraud. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but it could be the difference between thriving and going under for many small businesses.
Think about it. How much do you have left over after you’ve paid all the expenses? If your business took a hit for five percent of revenue where would it come from? For many small business owners, that five percent would come straight out of their own pocket or income.
The truth is that if fraud hits your small business it will probably be more than five percent of revenue. That figure is the average which means that most of the businesses who do get hit with fraud lose a lot more. That’s why you need to take some simple steps to prevent fraud.
Another article from SMB Finance suggests that having a background check as part of your hiring process is one of the best ways there is to keep fraud away from your door. It’s a simple and inexpensive solution.
Make a criminal background check part of your hiring process. Be sure to use a service, like SentryLink, that provides a check of national records.
Make a pre-employment credit check part of your wall of […]
First time landlords beware
So, you can’t sell your house and you think renting it out would be a good way to cover the mortgage payment while you wait for the market to come back from the dead. Maybe you’re right. Just make sure you know what you’re getting into.
The Whidbey News-Times just ran an article on the perils that may await you. They titled it “Rental Nightmares“. Here’s an excerpt.
Renting out one’s property can be a positive experience, ultimately building equity for the owner and providing cash flow. It can also be a doomed game of craps.
Before you take the plunge, do some basic analysis. Too many first time landlords figure that there’s a big payday in renting. Very often there’s not. Be sure you consider all your costs, including the costs of taxes, fees, renting out the property, maintaining it, and the costs of any potential legal action, including eviction.
If you still want to go ahead, I suggest you use a property manager. First time landlords often try to manage their property themselves, sometimes from a distance. That’s usually a bad idea.
A good local property manager can help you make sure that things are done right and that your property is looked after. They have experience in all the things you’ll need to learn about. Here are some of those things.
You need a solid, enforceable rental agreement or lease. It must conform to local laws.
You need a process for attracting, screening, and selecting tenants. It should include both a criminal background […]
Background checks help prevent workplace violence
Workplace violence statistics are hard to come by because they’re scattered all over. But we know it’s serious and we know that you need to act to help keep your employees safe and keep yourself out of court.
Here are some statistics from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and the U.S. Department of Justice for the United States.
There were 1.7 million violent workplace victimizations every year between 1993 and 1999. That’s the last year, sadly, that we seem to have comprehensive statistics.
Workplace violence accounted for almost a fifth of all crime in the same period.
Every week, 20 people are murdered and 18,000 are assaulted while they’re at work.
Homicide is the leading cause of death from occupational injury among females and the second leading cause of death from occupational injury among males.
I don’t know about you, but I find those numbers both startling and disturbing. The people who work for you are at risk if you hire someone who is violence prone and that person attacks, injures or kills someone on the job.
You’re at risk, too. If you hire someone who kills or injures another person at work, you could be sued for negligent hiring.
To help keep everybody safe, make a criminal background check a part of your hiring process for all employees. Scour the report for warning signs of potential violence. It’s one of the simple things you can do to keep your people safe and keep yourself out of court.
Use background checks, but follow the rules
There’s an excellent article at In-House Counsel titled: Conducting Employee Background Checks: Navigating Current Rule. Here’s the lead.
In recent years, an ever-increasing number of employers are conducting some form of background checks on job applicants and employees. In fact, in a 2004 study, the Society for Human Resource Management reported that 96 percent of human resource professionals indicated that their companies conduct some form of reference checks on prospective hires. That number nearly doubled from 51 percent less than a decade ago.
This is an excellent article and one that you should follow the link and read. It’s the sort of article you may want to print out for reference. It’s filled with details about particular situations and the laws in individual states. I won’t try to summarize an article this rich, but I will highlight some important points.
The reason you do criminal background checks is to protect your business and your employees. As the article says: “employers could face negligent hiring claims if they hire someone with a criminal record.”
Some organizations are required by law to conduct criminal background checks. The article says that commonly includes “those involved in child care, health care, elder care, education and those who work with other ‘vulnerable populations.'” You need to know if you’re required to conduct criminal checks.
Whether the law requires you to conduct criminal checks or not, you have to follow the rules about what you can do and how you can use the information you get. State laws […]