Using Technology to Make Life Easier
I love technology. I believe I am part of the majority. In general, it makes personal and professional tasks easier to complete. For personal use, I appreciate using my web cam to talk to family all around the world. Professionally, I implement new technology anywhere I can. Like so many of us, we are tasked to do more with less. Why not use technology to make life easier?
Technology evolves every single day and I am grateful that it does. For instance, when you think about the background check industry and where it has been and where it is today, you can thank heaven and earth for technology. Back then, private investigators would receive a full résumé, sit with the candidate and then conduct a neighborhood canvas and visit every previous employer (yes including travel) to complete a background check. Yikes!
In the…
- 70’s, microfiche and snail mail was used.
- 80’s, the fax machine was in full-force use.
- 90’s, the Internet came into our lives and we can thank Al Gore for his achievement.
- Early 00’s, the advent of the Internet pushed data entry from screening companies to HR departments.
- Late 00’s, HR departments downsized and screening companies and HR agreed that the applicant should enter in their own data.
Well, here we are, 2012. We are grateful to see the unemployment rate slowly going down. However, as our departments slowly increase in numbers, we still have the enormous pressure to do so much in such little time. Like so many, we need to think of ways to cut corners with the use of technology without comprising important aspects of our work. HR is the full cycle management of people – alpha to omega. Not an easy endeavor. As a result, when we have the power to leverage technology offered by our vendors, we need to give it some serious thought.
Most recently, Credential Check started to offer… The APPOL™, which stands for Apply Online. The APPOL™ is a proprietary tool that provides simplification through automation (automating the “yuk” work). It allows a company to paperlessly manage the entire candidate process. Imagine the ability to collect a candidate’s application, process their background checks and drug testing, send them their new hire paperwork and notify other departments about a new employee starting with the appropriate information they need to setup a computer, phone and badge. Credential Check also honed in on the needs of the HR professional by providing real-time dashboards that track most key HR statistics including hired vs. not hired, total background checks vs. total applications, cost, turnaround time from application to hire and many others. See what the APPOL™ can do for you (www.credentialcheck.com)! At RECON, we look forward to using this technology ourselves and well as introducing it our clients.
I am always thinking of ways to make life easier – personally and professionally. For 2012, are you?
Sally-Ann Cooke, MSHROD, PHR, CHRP
Client, RECON Management Systems
What is a 168?
I enjoy listening to people when they speak about their profession. Acronyms have become so common place in the working world that it almost requires a dictionary for each new employee to understand what people are saying.
Why would the background check profession be any different? It is not. In the past week I have heard from not less than a half dozen prospects refer to the types of searches they are conducting as National Criminal Searches and they believe that they are receiving a report that checks every court in the United States. They firmly believe that their supplier is checking at the County Court level and when we compare their reports they are not pleased that what they thought and what they are receiving are not the same.
So: What is a 168? A 168 is the number of hours in a week – which is terminology generally used in the staffing profession and more specifically within the Security Officer profession regarding the hours of coverage per shift in a week.
Answer: 24 hours a day (times) 7 days a week (equals) 168 hours
Let me shed some light on the terms:
Federal – State – National
with regards to criminal records.
Federal: A federal crime is an action that is illegal according to federal law, which means it is a crime throughout the entire country no matter where it is committed.
State: a state crime is something against the law of a given state; state crimes vary greatly throughout the country — as do the punishments attached to them.
National: a commonly used term meaning the United States – which does not have any correlation to our court systems. In other words – slang. J
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Federal Courts |
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Note: Sometimes a federal crime and a state crime overlap and the perpetrator could be charged with either offense; the United States Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, though, provides that the federal government take authority over the case, which means the offender will be tried through the federal system.
Some common examples of Federal crimes include the following:
- Bribery
- Computer crimes/hacking
- Counterfeiting of currency
- Embezzlement
- Forgery
- Immigration violations
- Insurance Fraud
- Kidnapping
- Mail fraud and other crimes concerning the postal service
- Racketeering
- Securities fraud
- Tax evasion and fraud
CA Restricts Use of Credit Reports
California is the latest state to place restrictions on the use of a person’s credit history in the hiring decision. Following states such as Connecticut, Oregon, Washington and Hawaii, California is now the seventh state to limit the use of a credit report in the hiring decision. Proponents of the bill, AB 22, state that unless a person has direct fiduciary responsibility or handles a large amount of cash daily, that a person’s individual financial history has no bearing on job capability or job performance. States have begun placing greater restrictions on employers because of the personal toll that the economic downturn and unemployment levels take on people.
If you have any questions, please call Credential Check Corporation at (888) 689-2000 or consult your attorney!
TROY, Mich. September 6, 2011—Staff members from Credential Check Corporation have been selected to receive the Crain’s Cool Places to Work award. This marks the third year that Credential Check has been selected as a top employer in the state of Michigan. Credential Check is proud to offer their employees extensive benefits including time off to volunteer, telecommuting program, 401k matching and excellent health coverage.
Credential Check was the only firm there that specializes in background checks. Credential Check is committed to providing background checks with a high level of service to its growing client list. This requires a dedicated staff of trained employees on hand to meet clients’ needs and special requests. According to Cynthia Pariseau, Manager of Administrative Services, “Credential Check Corporation is excited and proud to have been selected as a Cool Place to Work,” by Crain’s Detroit Business and the American Society of Employers. Michael Pachuta, President, stated “Our employees are the greatest asset at Credential Check, we are proud of what they have accomplished and we are committed to helping them grow personally and professionally.”
On Thursday June 23, 2001 Michigan Governor, Rick Snyder, signed new legislation that now makes it easier for criminal records to be expunged. The law looks at how many charged offenses are within a particular case. Under the prior law, a Judge could have a record expunged when there was only one offense on the record, however with the new law, a case can be expunged by a judge even if there are up to three offenses. This only applies to what is deemed a minor offense including ordinance violations, and misdemeanor records in certain cases; essentially no serious crimes are able to be expunged from a record.
Amidst a rocky economy and rising unemployment rates, the new law could make it easier for job applicants with prior minor offenses. Aside from the new law, having records expunged is a standard practice, most often applied to first time offenders that complete the sentence including probation successfully. Two common misconceptions or missteps with expunged records are:
- The record is not automatically expunged following the end of the probation, the defendant in the case must file a motion to have the record expunged and the judge must approve the motion prior to the record being expunged.
- The record may still be locatable following the case being expunged and it advisable for the defendant to contact the department that houses records at the state level to ensure they receive the proper documents to remove the record from their files. This is a key step as the record is expunged at the county level and if that record was already provided to the state the defendant will want to ensure that it is removed there also.
