With the looming potential of terrorism or other types ofviolence threatening those in the workplace, it's more importantthan ever for risk managers to take every precaution to protectworkers and customers.

Certainly the intention is to provide a safe work environmentand avoid hiring individuals with a predictable propensity forstealing money or assets. To this end, an important part of anysafety plan is having a good employment screening strategy.

If the unthinkable happens in an organization, immediatephysical injury, property damage or monetary loss could be just thebeginning of the repercussions. Actual and punitive damagesresulting from a negligent hiring lawsuit can be astronomical.

What's more, an employer must be able to demonstrate reasonabledue diligence in hiring, and a substandard screening strategy thatmisses existing criminal records will present a weak defense.

So how do you determine what messages are valid and whatpriorities should apply to your business and employees?

It can be argued that there are three main elements necessaryfor an effective background-screening program--quality, low priceand fast turnaround time.

Many organizations, however, embark on an employment-screeningprogram with a critical misunderstanding of how the elements of aneffective program fit together. Here are the elements from alogical perspective.

o Quality Is The Factor:

One of the biggest misconceptions among buyers, and the equationthat far too many vendors sell, is that low price plus fastturnaround time equals quality. Quite the opposite is true.

Because it is much more dynamic, quality is harder to comprehendin a value proposition against price and time. Quality in ascreening strategy must be discussed as a combination of, but notlimited to, the following vital attributes:

o Reliability Of Information:

A screening vendor should adhere to industry standard researchmethods and provide practical oversight to achieve confidence thatany criminal conviction reported is valid, compliant and identifiedwith the correct individual.

Simply stated, if your candidate has a reportable criminalrecord, you should find it. Similarly, a "clean" record must comewith reasonable confidence that there are indeed no existingreportable convictions in the areas where the individual hasresided, worked, or attended school.

o Customer Service:

A screening vendor should have customer service personnelavailable to answer questions within a reasonably urgent responsetime.

Customer service representatives need to be knowledgeable of thevendor's practices, products and methods, and should be able toexplain the sometimes less-than-clear legal language or creditcodes and abbreviations included in consumer reports.

o Legal Compliance:

A screening vendor must make every effort to ensure clients arein compliance with all applicable federal, state and local lawsgoverning access to, and reporting of consumer information.

The vendor should be sufficiently networked to be cognizant ofpending legislation at all levels, and have communicationprocedures in place to notify affected clients of changes that mayimpact their screening strategy or candidates.

o Privacy Protection/Data Security:

A screening vendor must perform due diligence on each new clientto mitigate the risk of identity theft and security breaches.

Industry-mandated due diligence requires validating theexistence and physical address of a client, and making surereasonable security is present at the facility.

Screening vendors need to educate clients on the sensitivity ofconsumer information and the importance of keeping consumer datasecure and confidential.

Similarly, a screening vendor must have extensive internaltechnology, procedures and precautions in place to protect theprivacy of the individuals on whom it produces consumerreports.

If these quality attributes sound important, it should beobvious that quality is directly correlated with both price andturnaround time--that is to say, increasing quality requirescommensurate, while reasonable, increases in price and time.

Warning: If you are using an instant nationwide database checkas the sole criminal history inquiry on your applicants andemployees, you are using a product that is cheap and fast. Thisshould be raising a flag by now.

Choosing a screening vendor based solely on price and turnaroundtime creates a risk that is immeasurable--but erroneously perceivedto be small.

To help understand this risk, consider three more elements. Allthree don't happen in succession every time, but like theproverbial perfect storm, you probably don't want to be around whenthey do:

o Bad apples: The average job candidate applying to the averagecompany has not been convicted of a serious or violent crime. Infact, most candidates will be considered "employable" by yourorganization's employment standards.

There will also be candidates who walk through your door thathave been convicted of one or more serious and/or violent crimesthat would disqualify them in accordance with your organization'semployment standards. These are the "bad apples."

o Poor quality background check: The faster and cheaper thebackground check, the more likely it is that an existing criminalrecord will be missed.

Conversely, you could be sued by an otherwise strong candidatefor disqualifying them from a position based on a bogus or expungedrecord attributed to that individual by a background check lackingsufficient oversight

o Incident on the job: This is where the perfect storm occurs. Abad apple with a history of serious or violent convictions appliesfor a position with your company. Your instant, cheap backgroundcheck fails to reveal this adverse history and you hire the badapple. This employee commits theft or assaults a customer orco-worker.

Suffice to say that plaintiff's attorneys will spendsignificantly more time and money than you did looking forinformation that could be considered a predictor of the currentincident. The consequences can be devastating.

Your selected screening vendor should be able to discuss indetail the quality attributes described above. Best practices inemployment screening dictate criminal history research in eachcounty jurisdiction and under all alias names revealed by a SocialSecurity number trace.

It typically takes up to three business days to accomplish this,and the cost will vary depending on how many places the candidatehas lived or spent significant time.

"Nationwide" database tools should only be considered as asupplement to county criminal research to attempt to identify"vacation" criminal records. Depending on the position applied forand the level of responsibility or access the individual will have,additional screening services may be relevant.

With virtually any service product, successful businesses arenaturally predisposed to be concerned with price and turnaroundtime. Effectively managing risk, however, requires moreconsideration. It is typically only when something bad happens thateveryone is suddenly interested in the quality of yourbackground-screening program.

If you want to truly minimize risk, do not leave quality out ofyour value proposition. It will take a little longer and cost alittle more in the short run, but in the unlikely event of anegligent-hiring lawsuit, you will save the difference many timesover.

A cheap, instant background check will provide little shelter ina perfect storm.