Avoid seasonal employee disasters with employee background checks from HireSafe!
It’s that time of year again, while people squabble over coffee cup designs, and prepare to descend on retail establishments all over the US, companies are starting to hire extra employees to deal with the onslaught. Seasonal hiring hits it’s peak in the months preceding the holiday season and with just a few weeks to black Friday thousands of applicants are probably flooding your inbox. With this many applicants in such a short amount of time, and potential hires set on working for a few weeks or month before moving to the next job, how do you know which ones are the straight edge hard workers you need in this time, and which ones are looking to make a little more off your company’s goodwill than what you pay them? Far too many seasonal employees are hired without a simple employee background check that could save your company from employee theft, and dangerous criminals.
With companies like UPS hiring 100,000 workers, Target picking up an extra 120,000 workers, and many others like Kohls, and Macy’s scrambling for employees, hiring is set to hit a multiyear high in the 2018 holiday season. According to CBS, retailers are expected to hire over 700,000 seasonal employees and that means a lot of new employees are needed fast.
Unfortunately, the need to get employees onboarded fast means many companies are taking shortcuts in the hiring process. One shortcut you can’t afford to take is skipping the proper due diligence when vetting potential employees with an employee background check. You will also want to ensure you have all the necessary onboarding paperwork including Form I-9, W-4 and any state specific forms.
Seasonal employees are a huge risk for your company. These workers are coming in during the busiest time of the year, interacting with more customers than your regular workforce is used to handling and learning tons about the inner workings of your company. This all makes a combination ripe for theft and other criminal activity. With high stress work days, unprofessional or even violent individuals could lose it and lash out at customers, employees or even you. Without running a simple pre-employment background check looking for past criminal activity, or utilizing an employee drug screening program to ensure you aren’t hiring a drug abuser, there is absolutely no way you can know if that otherwise qualified potential hire is going to steal from, harm your employees or your business.
HireSafe recommends our Essential National Profile Background Check Report for screening seasonal employees. This report offers a comprehensive overview of your potential hires background, including multi-state criminal database record searches, SSN validation, national sex offender registry search, 7 year county criminal court record search and many more items you can view by following this link. Sign up today and get verified to begin background screening candidates fast.
As always, all HireSafe services are conducted through a secure online portal that ensures compliance with federal and state specific background check logs, so you can rest easy before the busy holiday season knowing you don’t have to worry about staying compliant with local and federal regulations.
Once your employee is properly screened, you can begin the onboarding process. To find out more about how to handle seasonal workers resources like this recent Society for Human Resource Management article highlight tips for working with seasonal employees.