Weed Out The Weiners: Kevin Connell, AccuScreen Employment Screening Expert, To Give Best Practices

Join CEO of employment screening company AccuScreen.com, Kevin Connell, as he presents, “The 7 Commandments Of Using Social Media in the Screening Process,” on June 15th at the HR Tampa Dinner Meeting. Recruiters and human resource specialists will learn methods and best practices to screen potential candidates without fear of legal repercussions.

TAMPA FL – Eager to avoid repeat occurrences of the Anthony Weiner scandal, recruiters and HR professionals are becoming more vigilant about pre employment screening than ever. Kevin Connell, CEO of AccuScreen, will be presenting at the HR Tampa Dinner Meeting on June 15th at 5:30pm, which will be held at the Centre Club in Tampa, Florida. In addition to discussing standard techniques, such as an employment criminal background check, Connell will also shed light on legal and ethical methods to utilize social media screening, should employers wish to vet selections in that manner.

In his years of seeing the hiring process change with technology, Connell has gathered best practices, tips and tricks to gather pertinent information about potential new employees. His presentation, “The Seven Commandments of Using Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter as part of the Screening and Hiring Process,” will show attendees how they verify authenticity of collected information, and the pitfalls of not doing a thorough pre-employment screening. The full screening process should be disclosed to every applicant, including what resources the company plans to check. Also included in this presentation will be previously unheard-of ways to prevent anyone from hacking into a Facebook account.

“We want to make sure that companies, should they choose to vet applicants through social media, are doing so in a way that is not only effective, but legal and ethical. We’re looking forward to this opportunity to help recruiters and HR specialists feel more confident in their new hires,” said Kevin Connell, CEO and founder of AccuScreen.com (http://www.accuscreen.com)

Connell is a nationally recognized speaker known for his expertise on human resource topics including negligent hiring, employee theft, and resume fraud. He routinely speaks at human resources conferences and has also offered expert testimony before the Florida Supreme Court.

“Effective employment screening is often one of the best tools any company can put to use, as it results in higher quality, more productive and more loyal employees. We want to show you how to go about this important step properly, so that the applicant full understands and you can utilize the information collected,” Connell said.

“Social media use has skyrocketed and because of that, employers are more open to lawsuits or problems stemming from an employee’s down time. One example is the recent case in Albuquerque where a police officer was reprimanded after listing his employment as ‘human waste disposal.’ This embarrassed the department and spurred changes to the department’s social media policy. To further protect their companies, employers need to drastically alter the way human resource professionals performs each and every employment criminal background check, but also spell out a clear social media policy for after the hiring process is complete. I hope to help employers gain a better understanding of legal issues that result from using online information to make hiring decisions,” concluded Connell.

The presentation will take place on June 15th, from 5:30 to 8:30pm at the Centre Club, which is located at 123 S West Shore Blvd. in Tampa, Florida. This presentation has also been preapproved for recertification credits by HRCI. AccuScreen.com is pleased to be an approved provider by HRCI.

Does Your Office Have a Disgruntled Employee?

Offices often have to deal with disgruntled employees or employees who are living a double life. Unfortunately, every once in a while a disgruntled employee or an employee with unknown or hidden background will actually be hired. The new era of social media and interaction on the Internet has magnified the severity of the outbursts from disgruntled employees and can affect an office atmosphere. The line has to be drawn when such behavior disturbs office productivity and causes tension between employees. The examples included below are from real-life employees who were outed and caught on social networking sites. It stresses the importance of a criminal background check and pre employment screening on every potential employee!

1. Buckingham Palace Guardsman Cameron Reilly isn’t Kate Middleton’s biggest fan and was quickly fired after his Facebook post leaked through to the entire public. He posted: “Hur and william drove past me on Friday n all a got was a wave while she looked the opposite way from me, stupid stuck up cow am I not good enough for them!” With open comments like the one above, is not hard to imagine what happened next.

2. After tweeting jokes about the disaster in Japan, Gilbert Gottfried was fired from his job as the Aflac duck voice. Although the jokes were from his Twitter account, Japan notified the company and they quickly released him as they deal with 75% of Japan’s business and tried to respect the devastation occurring in the country.

3. A burlesque dancer who went by the name Professor Shimmy had her identity revealed over some performances posted on You Tube and was fired from her job for her after-hour activities. According to new reports, she was an associate professor at John F. Kennedy University and the University was not impressed with her burlesque hobby believing it would hinder her credibility as a professor. In March, she sued the university over firing her.

4. In a place where smoking is banned on campus, the last person you’d expect to break the rules would be the school principal. However, that was just what happened when the Principal of Central High School in Providence, Rhode Island, decided to smoke on campus. A student snapped a shot of her smoking and posted it to his Web site. He then proceeded to pass out flyers all around campus urging other students to visit his site and view the picture. Little did he know that by doing this he’d be granted several days off from school (what a punishment)! Once the local news caught wind of what happened, the student’s suspension was stopped.

Many and most employees seem to be honest, upstanding citizens but their personal lives and activities can speak more about them than anything else. Discover what your employees are doing in their spare time and from now on hire only potential employees with clean records.

Pre Employment Screening Can Help Prevent Dealing with Disgruntled Employees

Offices often have to deal with disgruntled employees or employees who are living a double life. Unfortunately, every once in a while a disgruntled employee or an employee with unknown or hidden background will actually be hired. The new era of social media and interaction on the Internet has magnified the severity of the outbursts from disgruntled employees and can affect an office atmosphere. The line has to be drawn when such behavior disturbs office productivity and causes tension between employees. The examples included below are from real-life employees who were outed and caught on social networking sites. It stresses the importance of a criminal background check and pre employment screening on every potential employee!

1. Buckingham Palace Guardsman Cameron Reilly isn’t Kate Middleton’s biggest fan and was quickly fired after his Facebook post leaked through to the entire public. He posted: “Hur and William drove past me on Friday n all a got was a wave while she looked the opposite way from me, stupid stuck up cow am I not good enough for them!” With open comments like the one above, is not hard to imagine what happened next.

2. A burlesque dancer who went by the name Professor Shimmy had her identity revealed over some performances posted on You Tube and was fired from her job for her after-hour activities. According to new reports, she was an associate professor at John F. Kennedy University and the University was not impressed with her burlesque hobby believing it would hinder her credibility as a professor. In March, she sued the university over firing her.

3. In a place where smoking is banned on campus, the last person you’d expect to break the rules would be the school principal. However, that was just what happened when the Principal of Central High School in Providence, Rhode Island, decided to smoke on campus. A student snapped a shot of her smoking and posted it to his Web site. He then proceeded to pass out flyers all around campus urging other students to visit his site and view the picture. Little did he know that by doing this he’d be granted several days off from school (what a punishment)! Once the local news caught wind of what happened, the student’s suspension was stopped.

4. After tweeting jokes about the disaster in Japan, Gilbert Gottfried was fired from his job as the Aflac duck voice. Although the jokes were from his Twitter account, Japan notified the company and they quickly released him as they deal with 75% of Japan’s business and tried to respect the devastation occurring in the country.

Many and most employees seem to be honest, upstanding citizens but their personal lives and activities can speak more about them than anything else. Discover what your employees are doing in their spare time and from now on hire only potential employees with clean records.

Five of the Best Hiring Tips for Human Resources and Hiring Professionals

There is often a never-ending pool of potential employees that seem to be the right fit for your company. Hiring the very best of this group can be easy if you proactively remember these 5 hiring tips:

1. Pre employment screening companies are a reliable way to help you select the right employee to fit your company’s wants and needs. A screening company can help you figure out which employee from your vast pile of resumes is actually worth hiring. A pre employment screening company offers a wide range of services including criminal background searches, drug test results, past employment history and so on. HR Managers feel more confident knowing that the candidates they are considering are truly qualified, are not past criminals and can start their job on a positive note.

2. For all job postings put out by your company include a thorough job description. Candidates who are seriously considering the job will be able to see if their skill sets can fill the expectations of the company before they apply for the position. In general, under-qualified applicants will refrain from applying and HR will be able to expend their efforts to those potential candidates who could really fit in with the company.

3. After the initial weeding has taken place by including a full job description, attempt to conduct as many interviews as possible for those employees you were impressed with on paper. While their resume may seem professional, in person they may not strike you as the ideal candidate. Make sure the employees you believe have potential are also teachable. This is an important skill to learn the ropes quickly. A pre employment screening company can help HR Managers see how many jobs and for how long each candidate has held and help them decide if they would be a good long-term employee.

4. Remember to ask directed questions during the interview. This can help you see whether or not they will be able to handle real situations that could arise in the workplace and with other employees. For example, you could ask: “how would you handle an unsatisfied and aggressive customer?” This can help you see how they would actually deal with customers and use their critical and problem-solving skills.

5. Always, always make sure to check over each potential candidates references thoroughly. An employee’s work record can be brought to light by a reference from a past employee. During these callbacks, you should ask about their attendance, timeliness, worth ethic and customer-skills. A pre employment screening company can do these reference checks for you and neutrally ask the questions that you want answered. This can be a big asset in helping you make the right hiring decision!

How to Become an Effective Boss

Are you striving to become a better and more effective boss?

Becoming a good and effective boss can be two different things. Good refers more on a person’s character while being effective involves proper management. If you want to be better in terms of being a good boss, you should first be able to understand your employees.

A few tips of helping you be a good boss are :

• Putting yourself in their shoes
• Perceiving things the way they do
• Understanding better what their needs are.

Now in order to be an effective one, the foremost step to do is to find the right people to work for your company. With the growing rate of resume falsification nowadays, it has become quite hard to determine which people are really qualified to work for your company or just lying on their resume. Studies have been done and have proven over one third of applicants lie on their resume. Even if you have excellent management skills, if your employees are not manageable at all, it will be very hard for you.

One way to ensure that only good employees enter your company, you have to conduct background searches on your applicants such as criminal background check. A background check provides valuable information about a person’s background, which includes educational verification, employment history, criminal records, medical records, driving records, drug testing records, vehicle registration, credit reports, military records, professional licenses, Social Security number, former residences, character references, incarceration records, sex offender’s list and many others.

Moreover, you should be able to provide proper motivation to your employees so that they will be able to produce excellent results. Motivation can be through rewards, recognition, increase in salary or giving of workers compensation. This is necessary to maximize your employee’s productivity so they can contribute better to the growth and success of your company.

It is not that difficult to become a good boss if you are a good person. Becoming an effective employer on the other hand, means being able to balance the needs of your company, your employees and yourself.

Employers: Avoid The Biggest Challenge In Finding Good Employees

One of the biggest challenges in finding good employees starts with the selection process. Employers question the ways in which they can keep from hiring unproductive employees. The answer to their questions lies in the job description, the interviewing process and a professional pre-employment screening of each potential candidate.

It is important to compose a strong job description including the title of the position, department, who the job reports to, what overall responsibilities it includes, key areas of responsibility, objectives, the term of employment and qualifications needed. This type of job description will attract serious and qualified candidates instead of large groups of run-of-the-mill candidates. Job seekers who are serious in their job search want as much information as possible before they apply to a position. Vague or poorly written job descriptions often push away great candidates.

A good interviewing process should always include both sides – employer and potential employee. Many interviewers make the mistake in thinking that a job interview is one sided and only ask questions aimed at finding out what the candidate can do for the company. A candidate often articulates what is important to him/herself but the interviewer must listen to discover what they can do for this potential employee. The honest truth is that most people apply for a job that will offer the most he/she can get. If the candidate is highly skilled or has a profession that is in high demand this is especially true. If you know your company is slow at handing out raises, make use of any other perks your company may have to offer and divulge them to the potential candidate. These perks can be anything from flextime to telecommuting. Many good employees will consider it a huge perk to be able to take off a few hours early to avoid a heave commute!

Professional pre-employment screening becomes an important issue in finding productive employees, as many times recruiters will like a candidate and, unfortunately, makes the mistake of overlooking any minor inconsistencies discovered in reference checks. While reference checks can provide a potential employer a more reliable view of the so-called candidate it does not equal the effectiveness and efficiency a pre-employment screening from an experienced company. Recruiters may opt to ‘overlook’ any inconsistencies because they like the candidate and want to fill the open position as quickly as possible. This can be a costly mistake to the company. Obtaining accurate, recent and factual information is a difficult task for someone who does not do it consistently and expertly. This is best left to a professional employee background-screening firm.

It is important for companies to select the ‘right’ employee from the beginning, not only to save them time but also for financial reasons. In order to do this, and regardless of the candidate, a pre-employment background screening should be conducted. Pre-employment screening can help avoid problematic employees by discovering their resume inconsistencies or even fraud. Screenings can also help you avoid becoming part of a negligent hiring lawsuit for your failure to verify information on an applicant, should any problems happen in the future.

How to Keep Your Employees From Becoming Millionaires At Your Expense

What is considered the “aspiring millionaire employee?”

An “aspiring millionaire employee” is a type of employee that is looking to gain some easy money through lawsuits against his/her employer. An employee like this may even have a history of suing employers to support lofty ambitions of wealth!

Pre-employment background checks are one of the best ways to prevent and avoid hiring unethical employees. Companies should be prepared to conduct pre-employment background checks on all prospective employees before they consider permanent hiring. In a short interview, either on the phone or in personal, it is practically impossible for employers to readily identify unethical applicants. To ensure you have covered your bases, it is a smart idea to conduct pre-employment screening on all potential candidates.

You are best to entrust pre-employment screening to professionals who are equip with the resources to quickly deliver an accurate and current employment background report. Employee screening firms such as Accu-Screen.com offers pre-employment screening and other research services to aid companies in the important decision of employee hiring in a timely manner.

Modus operandi of “gold digging” employees

“Gold digging” employees use three common ways or strategies of attempting to gain money from a business. These include lawsuits involving worker’s compensation, sexual harassment and discrimination.

Fraudulent worker’s compensation claims can become a major problem for employers in several ways. Most importantly, when an employer is sued under Worker’s Compensation, the company’s future Worker’s Compensation insurance rates will increase. This is a huge, unnecessary expense for companies. Other issues include the expense of finding temporary replacement for the “injured” employee. If a company chooses to use a staffing agency they have to be prepared for a 50% increase compared to what a regular employee would earn. In other words, if an employee normally makes $25.00 per hour, a company would have to pay a staffing agency $37.50 per hour. Apart from losing an employee, companies do not need this added expense!

False claims of sexual harassment can be a trying experience for any company and its employees. In this situation, you will be dealing with at least two employees – the alleged victim and the alleged harasser. Regardless of the outcome, the morale of fellow employees at the company will most certainly be affected. This can lead to reduced profits and loss of good employees.

Discrimination lawsuits often occur when a poor employee is on the way out due to bad performances or other issues. In retaliation, he/she will bring forth a claim of discrimination. The “aspiring millionaire employee” will claim protection under one of the Protected Classes in an attempt to save their job. The following are considered Protected Classes and persons cannot be discriminated against based on these characteristics: race, religion or sect, color, national origin, age, sex or gender, familial status, sexual orientation, disability status, veteran status, political affiliation, and genetic information. Considering the wide span of this group, many bad employees can fit into at least one of these categories. It is important to realize and remember that employees heading out of the company will often file outrageous claims. They probably do not even have real intentions to follow the case the entire way through. Instead, they usually hope to settle and, in the end, the employer pays the price of these false accusations.

How an Employment Background Screening Firm can help save you money!

An employment background-screening firm can assist you by providing accurate and current information on prospective employees. An employer who is armed with this type of information can make sound and appropriate hiring decision to help avoid unnecessary expenses such as raised worker’s compensation rates, legal fees and extra staffing expenses.

What Employers Should Know About Negligent Hiring

There are many instances when an employer may not be expected to look into a new hire’s criminal background. For instance, a hotel groundskeeper who has no direct access to guest rooms may be subject to different hiring requirements than cleaning personnel who may have keys and direct access to each room. It stands to reason that the groundskeeper may not have to submit to a criminal background check while the cleaning personnel would.

This scenario may have been true in the past, but due to the increase in job-related crimes, savvy employers know that they should require thorough background screening of each and every employee they hire, including, in the case of the hotel groundskeeper, those with no direct access to guests.

The reason for a comprehensive policy of background checks across the board is that it’s not just guests, clients, or customers who sue. Employees themselves have a right to expect to be reasonably safe on the job. And they have the right to hold the employer responsible for ensuring that safety. So, using the example of the hotel groundskeeper, although he may not have direct access to hotel guests:

1. He could commit a crime against a guest even though he has no direct access.

2. He could commit a crime against a coworker.

3. He could commit a crime against someone in the immediate vicinity of the establishment.

4. He could commit a crime against a contractor or vendor present on hotel property.

Looking at such scenarios, it’s a wonder why all employers don’t automatically screen every employee. The reason most don’t, the reason why they play Russian roulette with the safety of their employees, clients, customers, and contractors, is because it can be cost prohibitive to perform background screening on all employees. But, in the long run, inviting a negligent hiring lawsuit just isn’t worth the risk of failing to exercise reasonable care when hiring. After all, a negligent hiring lawsuit can not only be expensive, it can ruin the reputation of an organization. Again, using the example of the hotel employee who rapes a coworker (or a guest!), the hotel could lose a lot of business from the adverse publicity generated by such a lawsuit.

Hindsight is Better than Foresight, but Foresight is Smarter
It seems that in this new age of negligent hiring lawsuits, employers are expected to be clairvoyant. But, victims don’t quite see it the same way. Any employee, guest, client, customer, or contractor who becomes the victim of a crime due to the failure of an employer to thoroughly, if not properly, screen their employees for anything that may affect the rights of the victim can be reasonably considered the responsibility of the employer. This is because it is assumed that it is not just the individual who is responsible for his or her behavior; it is the employer who has to ensure that all employees hired meet a certain standard. After all, victims aren’t likely to receive financial compensation from the perpetrator, are they?

Ultimately, it’s not less expensive to cut corners on pre-employment screening. A lawsuit can be damaging in so many ways. Smart employers require all employees to submit to thorough background screening.

Employers: Don’t be Fooled by the “Diploma Mills” Degree

What are “diploma mills”?

A diploma mill or degree mill is an organization that awards academic diplomas with substandard or no academic study at all. These diplomas are not recognized by accrediting bodies. All that is required to get a diploma from a diploma mill is a valid credit card. There are no real standards and studying is not necessary.

With so many schools out there, legitimate or otherwise, how can employers make sure they are not being duped by unethical employees? The best way for an employer to get verification is to hire a professional employment background screening agency to research the educational background of an applicant or employee. These agencies have the experience, resources and skills to distinguish between legitimate and bogus schools.

Why employees buy into diploma mills

Some employees who purchase diplomas are under the impression that they are getting legitimate degrees. They are sold on the marketing ploys diploma mills use, such as, accepting “life experience” for credit toward a diploma. While it is true that some legitimate colleges offer “life experience” for credit, it is usually under very strict guidelines.

On the other hand, there are some employees who purchase fake diplomas to fool current or prospective employers. These employees see it as an easy way to get ahead with as little effort as possible. After all, $1000 for a bogus bachelor’s degree is much cheaper than a legitimate community college degree.

How fake diplomas may be a liability for employers

Imagine hiring an employee who turns out to have a fake medical or accounting degree. The consequences can be devastating to innocent clients and to an organization. Keep in mind that the employer is liable for any damage that an employee may cause while on the job. This is especially true if the employee was hired without verification of his or her qualifications.

Accredited, unaccredited and diploma mills

How can an employer tell the difference? Sometimes it is very obvious. Real school: Stanford University in Palo Alto, CA. Fake school: Stanford University, anywhere else. Sometimes it is not so obvious, which is why diploma mills are a billion dollar business. It is highly unlikely that these diploma mills will disappear any time soon.

In order to attract customers, many of these diploma mills use the exact name or a similar name of a well- known college. The people who run these mills know they will eventually be closed down, but in the meantime they will have made millions of dollars. Even if they are closed down today, they will open up another “school” tomorrow. This is partly due to the ease of advertising on the internet and the demand for fake diplomas.

How an employer can protect against applicants with fake diplomas?

One of the best ways to combat this increasingly persistent problem is to make sure every employee goes through an employment background screen, including an educational background search. A professional employment background firm will be able to distinguish accredited schools from unaccredited diploma mills.

The reality is that most Human Resource departments are too busy to investigate every school on an applicant’s resume or application. Many of these diploma mills are very sophisticated to the point of having a “registrar” that can verify the validity of their diplomas. It is usually best to leave this type of verification to an experienced employment background screen firm, especially one that is familiar with diploma mills.

What is Negligent Hiring?

Hiring managers generally fill positions according to which applicant is best for the job. They consider aspects of an applicant’s education, past work history, experience, etc. But, rarely, do hiring managers consider what can often be the most important aspect of what an employee brings to the workplace – criminal history.

Negligent hiring occurs when an employer fails to properly screen prospective employees, leading to the hiring of someone who has a criminal history that may have otherwise made the hiring of that individual undesirable primarily because doing so would have exposed other employees to unsafe working conditions.

For instance, if an employer hired someone who had been convicted previously convicted of rape to supervise an offsite group of female employees, that employer could be held legally liable should something occur on, or off, the job site. One the job site, the employer would be obviously liable. Off the job site, the waters become murky, but the case of a BP oil spill cleanup supervisor who offered a female coworker a ride home, then allegedly raped the woman, shows that employers may be liable for what happens outside the workplace if that employer’s actions, or lack thereof, could be viewed as the reason someone becomes the victim of a crime perpetrated by a coworker.

What all this means is that employers have to make sure that the people they hire don’t have a criminal background. An employer who becomes liable because an employee has become the victim of a criminal act perpetrated by a coworker, may be in that position because the law assumes that the employer should have known, had they performed a background check, that the employee they hired may have been a danger to those around him/her (or even to a client/customer of the organization).

The law requires employers to exercise what is called due diligence. Due diligence is the responsibility of vetting prospective employees for not only basic job skills and previous work history, but for personal factors that may be an issue within the workplace as well. Existing employees and customers have a right to expect a safe workplace. And, although there are certainly many things that can change after hiring, an employer’s failure to properly screen employees may leave them vulnerable to lawsuits and even criminal negligence.

The only way for employers to protect themselves against a negligent hiring lawsuit is to ensure that they have a sound and comprehensive pre-employment screening policy in place. A good pre-employment screening policy should not only include a check of educational information, prior employment history, and other “usual” employment-related requirements, but it should also require that anyone offered employment be subject to a thorough criminal background check.

All employees hired by an organization should be required to submit to such a screening. It is no longer good enough for employers to screen only those employees who may be in a position to directly damage the company’s bottom line – such as executive-level employees, those with access to company funds, etc. – but all employees. The people an organization hires are now, in many ways, considered the responsibility of that organization, both on, and in some instances, off the job. Employers have to protect themselves and their employees.

Hiring an Outside Screening Company to Perform Pre-Employment Screening

Many employers that are required by law to perform background screening on their employees employ either an in-house screening team or, in most cases, an outside screening company. Although partnering with a reputable outside screening service to handle their background check requirements is standard practice for many employers, still others, large and small, wonder if it’s a good idea.

Pre-employment screening can be expensive. For this reason, smaller employers wonder if they should handle their own background screening. For the most part, simple reference checks are easily handled by an organization’s HR department. However, more extensive screening may be best handled by a professional. Just as an employer won’t generally handle their own drug screening needs, they probably shouldn’t handle their own criminal records screening either.

There are several reasons why it’s a good idea to hire an outside screening company, not the least of which is the fact that a reputable screening service will be far more aware of the laws that govern pre-employment screening than the average employer.

So, what should employers look for in a screening partner?

• First, a screening agency should be reputable. Employers can check with the Better Business Bureau and ask for references from screening companies they are considering. It’s also a good idea to check with business associates and other reliable sources for recommendations.

• Second, a screening service should be experienced. Inexperienced screening services may include information that unfairly influences an employer’s decision or may fail to include pertinent information that an employer needs to know. Partnering with an experienced agency is a great way to ensure that information is complete.

• Third, a screening company should be thorough. A reputable agency assures an employer that they see the process through from start to finish. They not only guarantee that they comply with all state and federal laws but that they handle the administrative work involved in the process such as getting applicant permission, providing notices, and preparing reports.

• Fourth, a screening agency should provide information about their services. When considering any screening service, an employer should receive information about the company, the services it provides, how it complies with the legal aspects of the process, how it handles the administrative aspects of the process, and what guarantees it provides to the employer.

With workplace violence and the legal liabilities such incidents generate on the rise, employers can’t be too careful in making sure they make the best hiring decisions possible. Partnering with a reputable employment screening service can take a lot of the worry out of complying with state and federal laws, properly administering the process, and accessing a proper and thorough report. Even a small oversight in an employer’s do-it-yourself attempt at a criminal background check can leave that employer open to more legal liability than bargained for. In the long run, it may be wise to hire a reputable employment screening agency to reduce the risk of hiring the wrong person.

Workplace Violence: Zero Tolerance

According to The USDA Handbook on Workplace Violence Prevention and Response, “a sound prevention plan is the most important and, in the long run, the least costly portion of any agency’s workplace violence program.” This statement is underscored by the fact that workplace violence costs employers more than $120 billion every year. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) estimates that “nonfatal workplace assaults alone result in more than 876,000 lost workdays and $16 million in lost wages.”

A “sound” workplace violence prevention plan should be available to everyone within an organization, including:
• Employees
• Managers and Supervisors
• Agency Heads
• Human Resources Staff
• Employee Assistance Program Counselors
• Unions/Employee Organizations
• Security/Facilities Staff
• Law Enforcement Staff
• Conflict Resolution Offices

Workplace Violence is Everyone’s Responsibility
Workplace violence policies have to begin from the top down. Management must designate who is responsible for creating the plan, and they must follow up to ensure that a solid plan is discussed, formatted, and implemented so that everyone within an organization is aware of what to do in regard to the issues that surround workplace violence. First and foremost, workplace violence plans must include a zero-tolerance policy.

The following components should be part of any sound workplace violence prevention policy:
• A policy statement – zero tolerance, in most cases; the policy should address the organization’s position on workplace violence, identify the scope of the policy, and state the consequences for incidents of workplace violence.
• Pre-employment screening – a key component in workplace violence prevention, pre-employment screening can weed out potential perpetrators before violence occurs.
• Education and training – all employees should be educated about what workplace violence means and how to deal with incidents should they occur.
• Workplace dispute resolution – helpful in preventing workplace violence, dispute resolution may defuse personal issues before they lead to violence.
• Security – security teams are key to identifying and responding to immediate threats.
• Threat assessment – a team of individuals should be assigned the task of evaluating the vulnerability of the workplace and suggest ways to prevent workplace violence.
• Incident prevention, investigation, and record keeping – workplace violence should be thoroughly documented; even “minor” incidents should be investigated.

Although a sound workplace violence prevention plan may contain some or all of these components, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management’s statement that “pre-employment screening is an important part of workplace violence prevention,” should be a key factor in deciding what to include in your plan.

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