6 things to know before you hire.
1. Employment Eligibility Verification, the Form I-9, and E-Verify
With increasing worksite investigations, significant penalties and fines, and the expansion of E-Verify, managing Form I-9 compliance is becoming an even more critical task for HR organizations across the U.S.
The number of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) worksite inspections more than doubled from 1,191 in 2008 to 2,746 in 2010. Fines issued by the agency skyrocketed from $675,209 to almost $7,000,000 in the same time frame. And in 2011, ICE’s budget submission sought funding increases in their detention capacity and civil enforcement personnel. The trend is clear: I-9 audits are a key ICE initiative and the agency’s enforcement goals are getting aggressive.
The paper Form I-9 process can be error-prone and hard to understand. This one-page form is so complex that the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service provides a 69-page booklet on how to properly complete the I-9 form. It seems unfair that companies are penalized when they make mistakes – even after good faith efforts at compliance.
Automating the historical paper Form I-9 process is a way companies can ensure forms are correct and properly stored. Employment Eligibility Verification services today eliminate stacks of paper, help reduce errors, and improve compliance and we will continue to see these services emerge in the future.
2. EEOC Involvement in Criminal and Background Checks
With an increase in negligent hiring, retention, and defamation lawsuits, spiraling recruitment and training costs, and an upsurge in workplace violence and theft, employers feel they need to know as much as possible about every employee.
Surveys report 30 percent to 50 percent of job applicants either lie or exaggerate on applications and during interviews, and the need to investigate and confirm application data is more important than ever. However, in an effort to appropriately balance an employer’s “need to know” with an employee’s privacy and equal employment opportunity rights, many federal and state laws regulate the type and amount of information that employers may obtain. Therefore, employers that are interested in conducting background investigations must be fully aware of each law’s specific requirements and must tailor their employment practices accordingly or else risk the financial sting of stiff penalties.
In its newly updated guidance EEOC on criminal convictions in the hiring process, EEOC recommends that all employer policies allow for what the commission calls an individualized assessment. Here’s what it means: If an applicant – or an existing employee – has a criminal conviction on his or her record that would justify your policy of screening him or her out of consideration for a job, the commission wants you to go further.
It stands that there are conflicting and confusing pressures on businesses when it comes to using prior conviction and arrest records in hiring decisions. EEOC commissioners acknowledge that this is a complicated issue. There is a dichotomy between giving people a second chance and having employers feel more secure with the people they’re hiring. As more stakeholders in this issue surface, the outcomes of future EEOC meetings will have a significant impact on hiring decisions.
3. Social Media Screening
A recent Aberdeen Group study shows 77% of HR, staffing, and recruiting professionals use an online career site for talent sourcing. Online content – especially popular social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn – has created a new and rich information source for HR, staffing, and recruiting practitioners sourcing and screening candidates.
Social networks are an avenue to identify mostly active candidates (those actively looking for a new job), help verify a candidate’s resume claims, unearth undesirable behaviors, and gain insight into a candidate’s skills, personality, even cultural fit. While benefiting employers, social media as a screening tool creates new legal concerns and should be used wisely to avoid potential pitfalls.
As social media adoption continues to accelerate, this sourcing and screening challenge will be even bigger in coming years. Prepare yourself by ensuring your protocols enable you to leverage the value of social media without the risk of discrimination and negligent hiring claims.
4. Candidate-Driven Resume Verification
More than a third of respondents in a 2011 Harris Interactive survey believed that misrepresenting information on a resume can be extremely beneficial for a job seeker.
Resume fraud has spawned a multi-million dollar employment verification industry designed to weed out fabrications. However, much of this effort is wasteful as each verification process starts from scratch, rechecking the entire resume, including static portions that don’t change over time.
Third-party resume verification services are cropping up to benefit job candidates, recruiters, employers, and select career management sites. Verifying the accuracy of a resume, ultimately providing a trusted third-party seal of approval, brings a new level of confidence to all involved parties.
5. Drug Screening
According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), 1 in 6 employees use illicit drugs among adult fulltime workers. The U.S. Department of Labor reports that drug use costs employers an estimated $75 billion to $100 billion per year in lost productivity. The issue of illicit drug use and its impact on workplace is top of mind for many HR, staffing and recruiting professionals. What is the net effect? Pre-employment drug screening is on the rise. This year the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) found that 84% of companies are now conducting pre-employment drug testing and 40% of those are conducting post-hire screening, as well.
SHRM data also shows that a well-designed drug testing program decreases workers’ compensation claims, on-the-job injuries and absenteeism, property theft and damage, and can increase productivity. It makes sense that such programs are being put into place. However, employers need to understand the potential issues related to drug testing in the workplace – like the ever-increasing and sometimes contradictory legislation surrounding the use of medical marijuana – before rolling out such programs across their organizations.
6. Single Platform for the Hiring Process
From the time a hiring manager identifies the person they want to hire, to when the new employee becomes fully-engaged and contributing to the organization, companies use multiple vendors to navigate the hiring process. For some HR professionals, there is an increasing need to manage their entire hiring process on a single, integrated software platform. A single platform allows seamless integration, plugging into recruiting systems on the front end and human resource information systems (HRIS) on the back end.
All of these human resource management trends bring unique challenges to HR, recruiting, and staffing professionals, and will shape the way we’re thinking about managing our hires in the future.