best practices for screening existing employees 061208

8/14/2019 Best Practices for Screening Existing Employees 061208

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Strengthening

Security rom WithinBest Practices for Conducting

Successful Background Checks

on Existing Employees


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Strengthening Security rom WithinBest Practices for Conducting SuccessfulBackground Checks on Existing Employees

Screening your companys existing workforce can be a critical component in your overall securityplan. But the process is far from simpleand is often intimidating. Learn from one company that hasnavigated the complexities, and consider their strategies to help you plan the process.

Preemployment background screening is now considered a standard practice in Corporate America.Very ew companies, however, are crossing the threshold to conduct screens on their existingworkorce. Its a complex endeavor, and to be successul, companies need to walk a fne line betweenaddressing legitimate business and security risks and not alienating employees along the way.

In 2007, LexisNexis undertook the huge challenge o background screening its existing U.S.workorce, a base o approximately 6,000 employees including a screen or criminal violations.

As the head o HR or the U.S., I can tell you that this initiative, without question, could have beenperceived as the most negative program that we potentially could have ever rolled out, said LindaHlavac, Senior Vice President o HR. We had to navigate each decision careully, with the utmostdiscretion at every turn, and ensure we designed a multiaceted and comprehensive employeecommunications plan.

Thereore, to create an atmosphere o sharing and communication to minimize employee concern,LexisNexis developed a ourphased approach to create a winwin or the company and theemployees.

Phase I: Pre-Launch Process Design

Formulate the Initial Process Design

To kick o the employeescreening initiative, LexisNexis ormed a core design team that consistedo senior members rom HR, Legal and Security. Together, this team created the guiding principlesor the process design, which in turn, drove the rollout and employee education eorts. Theundamental design principles were as ollows:

Principle #: Make a plan to overeducate and overcommunicate with employees.

Principle #2: Assume positive intent on the part o the employees and dont rush to judgment.

Principle #3: Keep the entire process simple, easy to understand, and as short as possible.

Principle #4: Ensure confdentiality throughout the process.

The team also defned the background checks themselves including a review o criminal

convictions, such as trustrelated crimes o deceit, dishonesty or raud (e.g., thet, embezzlement).Thus, the team decided to screen or identity authentication, clearance against the Ofce o ForeignAsset Control (OFAC), and national, multistate and county criminal record searches. Togetherthese checks would cast a wide net across the U.S.
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Get Executive Buy-In

Once the process design began taking shape, the threeperson steering committee sought buyinrom all Clevel managers in the U.S. During a series o executive briefngs, the team presented theproposed process design, and took the time to help these managers understand the process, the

implications and the rollout strategy.

Once the process was designed and senior executives were on board, the design team startedwriting policies, procedures and general parameters around program rollout and employeecommunication. The steering committee then turned the program over to an implementation teamnow tasked with execution across the business.

This implementation team was crossunctional in makeup and consisted o managers rom awide diversity o roles, including:

Human resources (generalists)

HR inormation systems

SecurityInormation technology

Legal

Representatives rom the background screening provider

Internal communications

Conduct Pilot Programs

Beore launching the program companywide, LexisNexis launched a series o pilot programs, tomake sure the processes and decision logic were sound. The frst pilot screened a small group osenior HR leaders and the implementation team. Once that was done and minor correctionsmade the team ran a larger pilot, which screened all the U.S. leaders in HR, legal and securitydepartments, dialing in the review process along the way.

We thought it was important to do these groups frst, to demonstrate to employeesthat the individuals who could potentially be doing investigations, viewing data ormaking recommendations on potential employee actions had already gone throughthis process themselves, said Tom Smith, Vice President o HR and implementationteam leader.

Phase II: Process Roll-Out

Once the pilot program concluded, LexisNexis was ready to start screening the general employeepopulation. Because o the sheer size o the organization, however, screening all 6,000 employees at

once was simply not easible.

The process o conducting, reviewing and evaluating employee results takes timeand thousands o results coming back at once would have caused a major processbottleneck, explained Smith.


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Thus, the company wisely decided to batch employee groups by business divisions andbuildings conducting around 300 employees at a time. Heres a stepbystep glimpse o the howthe actual process worked:

The Employee Screening Process, At a Glance

Train Employees Communicate the plan details using online announcements, emails, and acetoace meetings.

Get Employee Consent In accordance with the Fair Credit Reporting Act and other applicable statelaws, employees had to give permission to have their background screened.

Confrm Employee Identity Then, they had to answer questions about their personal identity toconfrm that they are who they say they are.

Collect Employee Declarations Employees then were asked to disclose, in accordance with theapplicable state laws, convictions other than minor trafc violations going back seven years.

Conduct Batch Testing These screens got processed in batches o 300 at a time. Several dayslater, the reports would come back. All clean reports, meaning no issues with the verifcationsor crimination checks reported, were closed immediately with no additional action taken. Anyreports indicating that there was an issue with the verifcations or a criminal conviction went intoan audit fle or subsequent review by a twoperson core review team (Senior VP, HR and ChieSecurity Ofcer).

Review Audit Files Every week, the two person review team met and worked through the auditfle. Many times the issues raised were cases o a mistaken identity or an error in the public record.Each incident was evaluated and viewed in light o the employee declaration, the nature o theconviction, the position held by the employee among other actors.

I we were to fnd a situation where we had to make an employmentrelated decision, wewould work with our legal counsel and the unit head or the employees business unit. Atereducating them on the situation, Mike and I would then recommend the action we thinkmight need to be taken anything rom separating the employee rom the company to

changing the employees roles and responsibilities, Hlavac said

Share Results with Employees A copy o the background screen itsel was delivered to eachemployee within a day o being submitted to the review team.

This added value in two ways. The short turnaround time relieved some anxiety on the part oemployees. Plus, having a copy o their individual report enabled them to identiy alsepositiveresults or cases o potential identity thet. To help them read and interpret their reports, LexisNexis

eatured a sample report on the intranet site, along with a ull explanation on how to interpret it.

Conduct Any HR Investigations Inaccuracies or inconsistencies in employees records were alsosent electronically to an HR team member, who would then, in concert with the employee, helpclariy the acts surrounding the events.

Close Out the Files Once all items on the audit reports were fnalized, the fles were closed. I anyadverse action were to be taken, FCRA and applicable state law process were ollowed.


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Aside rom the employee himsel or hersel, generally, the only other people that sawa persons background report was Linda and I, explained Higgins. The whole reviewprocess was very controlled. The results were not or publication, and were not going in anemployees managers fle. Our main goal was to view the results and close out issues as soon

as possible.

Over communicating the process and our overall objective helped relieve a lot oemployees concerns, added Hlavac. Understandably, they werent quite sure who wasgoing to see what, where the data would be going, how it would be stored, and i it wasgoing to be held against them or uture career advancements.

Ironically, some o the items ound actually ended up being benefcial to employees. Individuals haveound some isolated cases o identity thet, as well as cases o multiple users sharing a social securitynumber. LexisNexis oers ollowup resources to help employees work through these issues.

Keeping Up Employee Morale: Communication is Key

One o the reasons LexisNexis employee screening initiative has had minimal impact on employeemorale was summed up in one word: communication.

I just dont believe that you can overcommunicate with this type o process,said Hlavac. The more a company can transparently communicate with itsemployees, the better o it will be. We knew that employees may consider this ahuge aront to their personal privacy and we had to overcome this challenge withcommunication explaining what we were doing, the business reasons behinddoing it, and our commitment to confdentiality.

To do that, the implementation team used a variety o communication methods to inorm people othe initiative and process, including:

Introductory letters

Facetoace executive briefng meetings

TownHallstyle employee meetings, held just prior to commencing the screening process in anew business unit

A dedicated intranet site, containing:

A detailed process map

Videos

FAQs

Inormation on how to read a background screen report

Articles o interestLinks to internal and external resources that can help resolve data inaccuracies

Links to organizations that could help resolve matters surrounding identity thet

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We had to make sure to send the message loud and clear that this was not apunitive process and that our employees would be given the opportunity to explain asituation beore decisions would be made.. Higgins said.

Throughout the communications, we really stressed the confdentiality aspect, he

said. These results werent going to be shared with managers and Linda and I werethe only two looking at these records unless we needed more inormation. I thinkthat really eased a lot o peoples ears. This was between us and the employee, andissues were resolved, they were done.

Phase III: Beyond the Initial Screen

To date, LexisNexis employee screening process is about 7% completed. The remaining employeescreenings should be completed by the end o 2008. Once done, LexisNexis will commence amaintenance plan, whereby employees will be rescreened every two years, coinciding with theiranniversary date.

Using an automated LexisNexis product called Rescreen Manager, the company can be remindedwhen employee background screens are coming due, and can help automate the reorder process.

Fortunately, uture screening processes will require less education and less communication sinceemployees have already been through the process once. Plus, the individuals identity inormationhas already been verifed, so the process actually gets easier with time.

I companies use an Evergreen Consent, which is available in many states, the process gets eveneasier as the company has permission to conduct background checks throughout the course o anindividuals employment.

We could have just checked all our employees once and been done, but peoplelive their lives and things happen to them every day, said Higgins. We wanted toprovide assurances to our customers that we werent just going to do this once, butthat we would do it regularly.

At the end o the day, its good or our customers, good or our employees andhelps solidiy our reputation as an industryleading provider o critical business,government and legal inormation.

About LexisNexis

LexisNexis Screening Solutions quickly authenticates the identities and verifes the backgrounds o

both individuals and businesses. With more than 20 years o experience providing critical businessdecisionmaking data, LexisNexis provides powerul intelligence and analytics organizations needor managing their risks in hiring and customerretention decisions. As a leader in inormationretrieval, conducting close to 4 million searches a day, LexisNexis pioneers technologies to reduceturnaround times or their clients and to give them a competitive edge. Data can be delivereddirectly via XMLbased integration or by batching technology. To accomplish this, LexisNexis usesinnovative matching logic to veriy applicants identities, criminal and credit records, as well as
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education and work history all while coordinating reports with drug or fngerprint screeningresults. LexisNexis provides solutions to all sizes o organizations and can tailor reports, billing, andorders based on the unique needs o each business.

In Summary: Strategies or Employee ScreeningUse a core design team to establish the program design.

Get executive management acknowledgement and support early on.

Run Pilot tests prior to ull implementation.

Create an eective implementation team.

Limit data access to a very small group.

Communicate, communicate, communicate.

Educate employees via town hall meetings right beore they begin the process.

Use a crossunctional implementation team

For more best-practices on employee screening or help determining theright screening criteria and automated tools, contact LexisNexis Screening Solutions at800 590-8535 or risk.lexisnexis.com/screeningemployees.

Nevada Private Investigators License Number 1369. LexisNexis Applicant Screening is a consumer reporting agencyproduct provided by LexisNexis Risk & Information Analytics Group Inc. and is fully compliant with the Fair CreditReporting Act, 15 U.S.C. 1681, et seq. LexisNexis and the Knowledge Burst logo are registered trademarks of ReedElsevier Properties Inc., used under license. Other products and services may be trademarks or registered trademarks oftheir respective companies. Copyright 2008 LexisNexis Risk & Information Analytics Group Inc. All rights reserved.
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LexisNexis and the Knowledge Burst logo are registered trademarks o Reed Elsevier Properties Inc., used under license. Other products and services may be trademarks or registere

trademarks o their respective companies. 2008 LexisNexis Risk & Inormation Analytics Group Inc. All rights reserved .

For more information contact:

LexisNexis Screening Solutions1-800-590-8535 or

risk.lexisnexis.com/screeningemployees
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