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Your Ultimate Guide To Contractor Background Checks

Background Screening | January 7, 2020
Contractors meeting at a clients home

Whether you’ve actually performed one, or undergone one for that matter, you’ve most likely heard of a background check. They are necessary for employment in a number of occupations as well as for volunteering, renting a house or apartment, purchasing a firearm as well as a wide variety of other activities and tasks. They are usually requested by an employer, landlord or other administrative party and then outsourced to a firm to perform the actual vetting process.

However, not all background checks are the same. Today we’re going to delve into the world of contractor background checks. You’ll learn what makes our contractor background check process unique at PlusOne Solutions, why you should always do them and possible ramifications of failing to conduct one.

How to tell if you have contractors

Whether you’re stepping into a business as a manager, or looking to hire new workers, its important to know what kind of workers are available. A contractor is legally defined as a person or a business that agrees to work for another entity as specified within a contract. Unlike employees, contractors are independent entities that do not work exclusively for your business. Other names for a contractor include:

Determining what roles and forms of employment your current employees and contractors fall under can radically change how you determine your Risk Management.

Once you have an idea of how you want to hire, the next step is setting up background checks.

What is a Contractor Background Check?

A contractor background check is just that, a background check for the employment of a contractor as a third party employee for an organization. There are many different types of background checks, criminal, drug, driving, tennant, credit, healthcare related checks and on. 

What makes our process of contractor checks unique is that our checks actually encompass parts of various different types of screenings. We perform criminal background checks, motor vehicle reports, drug testing and even badging services.

Why Perform a Contractor Background Check?

why is it important to perform a background check on contractors? After all, these individuals aren’t actually employees of your organization, is it really that necessary? You may need some help on the workforce now, and don’t want to wait for a background check to come through. Well, you SHOULD, and it IS that important here’s why.

Simply put, you’re protecting your customers, your business and reputation. 

Picture this, a contractor that you hired commits a violent crime in a customer’s home. People are injured, property damaged, guess who’s on the hook, that’s right, you. You won’t just be held liable for the physical damages, but the reputation of your business will seriously be called into question for not doing your due diligence. Would you want to book a job with an organization who has had employees in the news for committing crimes?

Here’s another example; a contractor is driving a company vehicle, however a background check was never performed so you didn’t know that this individual has serious issues with drugs and alcohol as well as multiple traffic violations. The contractor strikes a pedestrian with the work vehicle and kills them. Not a pretty scene. The costs, litigation and horrible feeling of dread are something that you want to avoid at all costs. 

A final example is how a contractor could conceptually relate to you and your business. Setting your clients and customers aside for a moment, consider that individuals with drug and alcohol problems are typically less productive than those without. This can present a loss of money through lost productivity. Additionally, having a contractor with a criminal history may also put your business at risk for losing money through theft directly from the company. Having your contractors pre screened will reduce the likelihood of these events happening. 

It’s worth the time and effort to protect your business, but also to put your customers at ease as well. Your clientele and for that matter you will feel more comfortable when a contractor that you hired is working at their home, business or on their property when they know that they have been properly vetted.

What Are the Risks of Not Performing a Background Check on Contractors?

Contractors often have the same level of access –or even more– than a regular employee in order to get their job done. Often a contractor is brought on to complete a project for a company where they need a certain set of skills for a limited time and they don’t want to keep someone permanently on staff, or because the company needs a new skill set for a new product or service, and the company wants to be able to more easily fold the products workforce if it doesn’t work out.

Because of this, contractors need more oversight than normal. While many companies hire contractors to insulate themselves from legal liability, simply labeling the worker as a contractor may not be enough.

Contractors often forgo the usual background checks and screenings that employees do, or simply perform the same level of screening.

Cautionary Tales

It is very important to know the laws or consult with a legal counsel to ensure best practices are implemented and proper navigation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (which is a federal law regarding the collection of information on consumer credit) in your application of the screening. Credit reports are common in most background screenings.

Dollar General’s 6 million dollar mistake

Regarding knowing the laws and navigating the FCRA, an article published on HRDive.com details how Dollar General got caught in this misstep. The crux of the story is that Dollar General has agreed to pay $6 million to settle a U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) lawsuit alleging that its misuse of criminal history in hiring decisions violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Gilberg v. California Check Cashing Stores, LLC

Another example, published in NewEnglandInHouse.com details how background check missteps can be costly. The article references the case of one Desiree Gilberg and her lawsuit against her former employer. Essentially, the employer hired her after completing a background check and she worked at the company for several months. After her employment had ended however she sued her former employer on behalf of herself and a putative class of other job applicants, alleging that the company had failed to provide the requisite disclosures under the FCRA and California’s Investigative Consumer Reporting Agencies Act before running a background check on her.

The problem was that the disclosure form did not consist solely of the FCRA required disclosure language. Rather, the form also included “extraneous and irrelevant information beyond what FCRA itself requires” — i.e., the state-specific disclosures.

Not properly handling background checks can be just as dangerous as not performing them in the first place. If you have any questions about the process and what it entails or requires, don’t be afraid to consult with a legal counsel, or work with someone that can help with insurance and risk management.

Gavel and scales and an open briefcase
Professional Background Services like PlusOne are experts in the laws surrounding background checks and can help mitigate your legal risks

The PlusOne Solutions Process

Here’s an indepth look at PlusOne Solutions contractor background checks.

Criminal Checks

PlusOne scours criminal record systems for illegal activity, additional names, previous locations, and the histories of everything in between. We follow these leads to pull information from both national and local databases.

There is a common misconception that the federal, state, and local databases share information, and the use of automated and free tools online don’t communicate anything close to a full report for even a single state. While the FBI provides VICAP data, the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program database, there is no database for sharing or syncing that information. Because of this, most background check services are unable to provide vital information on applicant criminal history.

PlusOne uses a number of different tools and even more extensive databases to compile criminal information to a high-degree of accuracy to deliver you a report of an individual’s criminal history. You can learn more about how to get additional information and full reports on our resource page.

Motor Vehicle Reports (MVR)

Motor Vehicle Reports: This search uses the subject’s name, driver’s license number and state of issue to search the Department of Motor Vehicle (“DMV”) records for driving status and history. It also reports on the accuracy of the given information compared to the information maintained by the DMV including name accuracy, driver’s license number, and possibly reported date of birth, as available.

Just the same as the lack of shared information, multiple states do not share information with other states. These states include:

Reducing the risk of company cars being involved in a crash, or causing an accident while serving as the face of your company is an often oversight, even for those companies already performing background checks. The MVR report includes the class of the license, citation history, accident history, suspension information, license restrictions and current status of the driver’s license.

Drug Testing

Today, most companies have a no-drug policy, and understand that yes, the United States is in fact in the middle of an opioid epidemic. Making sure that employees that you hire are clean and ready to work is crucial to reducing liability.

While criminal history checks and motor vehicle reports are important to identifying a history of drug abuse, there’s no better way to tell if someone is currently addicted, using drugs, or being able to hire a former addict with confidence that they’ve left their habits behind.

PlusOne uses the latest collection, testing and review methodology to ensure the most accurate methodology and features:

Badging 

Badging is the process and procedure of making sure that your staff, both contractors and employees, are allowed to be on the premises. More often, this is a common procedure where safety, security, or personal data is involved. Construction, Medical, engineering, and government facilities and corporations are more familiar with the process where it is often mandatory.

Badging provides the benefit of protecting secure staff areas and aiding in reducing risk. Investors and business partners can find a lack of this level security as another factor on whether or not to partner with a growing business.

CheckMyBadge

Here at PlusOne Solutions we also source badges for your contractors. Photo badges are available for qualified service technicians in both digital and printed versions.

Use the digital version in your electronic customer notifications and have technicians display their badge to the customers using the included carabiner clip. Customers can verify the technician identity by entering the badge number at our proprietary CheckMyBadge.com.

Badging enhances your screening program, adds another layer of security and reduces risk even further by adding verifiable photo badges.

Contractor Background Checks You Can Trust 

Professional Background ScreeningWhen it comes to conducting background checks, you should always use a trusted source of verification like PlusOne Solutions; low quality background checks may not be as encompassing as they could be which could lead to you getting burned, or worse, in a lawsuit. Cheap and automatic background are often low quality and not even done correctly!

We are certified by the Professional Background Screening Association (PBSA). The PBSA offers an accreditation program for Consumer Reporting Agencies (CRAs) located in the United States. This certification is widely recognized as the industry seal of approval and brings national recognition to an employment background screening-affiliated organizations for their commitment to achieving excellence through high professional standards with accountability that results in continued institutional improvement.

When partnering with PlusOne Solutions, you’ll be doing business directly with our people. No overseas call centers, no do-it-yourself software platforms, no off-shore labor and no constant transfers to other departments – just you and us.

For over 15 years, our dedicated team has been focused on you, your employees, your network and your contractors, this perfectly reflects our core values of integrity, accountability, innovation, passion and family. Customer success is the goal of our entire organization and how we define when a job is well done!

You can start screening now, or contact us here to schedule a consultation with one of our team members to start working toward handling all of your background screening goals today!

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