by Jason Morris

This is very exciting news for the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM).  At this year’s SHRM conference we had the pleasure of doing a podcast with interim CEO China Miner Gorman.  Next year we hope to interview Mr. O’Neil.

SHRM Names Laurence O’Neil New President and CEO

In a major advance of its strategic initiatives, the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) on Aug. 11 announced the selection of Laurence (Lon) G. O’Neil as president and chief executive officer.

O’Neil, who had been senior vice president and chief human resources officer at Kaiser Permanente, will take the helm on Oct. 1, 2008, of the world’s largest human resource management association representing more than 245,000 professionals in 130 countries.

SHRM’s Board of Directors unanimously chose O’Neil after a rigorous, six-month national search that included a pool of more than 400 potential candidates. He has held executive-level human resources and corporate positions at profit and not-for-profit organizations, both in the United States and overseas.

“Lon brings extensive HR, corporate and international experience to our organization,” said Janet N. Parker, SPHR, chair of the SHRM Board of Directors and executive vice president for human resources at Regions Financial Corp in Birmingham, Ala. “His impressive record of achievement and innovation will be an asset to SHRM’s strategic growth and ongoing service to our members. We welcome his leadership as the Society and the profession continue to expand their influence.”

More

by Jason Morris

Background screening in the airline buiness is a serious matter.  The FAA mandates various levels of screening and very industry specific searches.  Generally, these mandated searches are not for airline office employees.  A proper background check would have shown this employee to have a previous record from 1996 for theft by swindle.

Sun Country Worker Who Took $200,000 Pleads Guilty

A Sun Country Airlines employee who siphoned more than $200,000 from the company for gambling and other purposes pleaded guilty Tuesday in Dakota County District Court.

The plea by Kelly Jean Dillon-Love could mean revocation of probation for a felony traffic conviction four years ago in Iowa, which could put her behind bars, an Iowa corrections official said.

Dillon-Love, 45, of Minneapolis and Grady Jackson Jr., 35, who lists a Minneapolis address, were charged earlier this year. Dillon-Love described Jackson as an on-and-off-again boyfriend, authorities said.

Dillon-Love admitted to five felony counts of theft by swindle. The case against Jackson is pending.

County Attorney James Backstrom said Dillon-Love was convicted in 1996 of stealing from her Minneapolis employer.

by Jason Morris

This idea would never ‘cut it’ in the U.S., too many EEOC and other Federal and State implications.  However, our friends in India seem to be having some success with it. Could you imagine a daily updated database of citizens who have already had a background check?  This initiative begs a lot of questions.  I am interested to see the debate ensue!

National Skills Registry a ‘great first step’

Bangalore, June 16 Two years after its launch, the National Skills Registry, a Nasscom initiative boasts of a database of over 2.5 lakh ‘clean people’ in the industry.

But with over two million employees in the current IT/ITeS workforce in the country, can the registry really enhance the country’s reputation as a ‘trusted outsourcing’ destination?

“Though there are moves to make it popular, it has to reach a critical mass to actually catch on with the industry,” says Mr Gautam Sinha, Chief Executive Officer, TVA Infotech, an IT recruitment firm.

The tipping point will be when large IT firms make it mandatory for all job aspirants to be registered on the registry, he says.

Mr Mohandas Pai, Director, HR, Infosys, says that though the company has mandated a background check for all its lateral recruits, “we cannot reject a candidate if he or she is not registered with the NSR”.

More

by Jason Morris

I found this blog posting this weekend.  This is a great commentary on an article written in Business Week last week.  In my opinion, and the opinion of the blog author, the article was not an accurate portrayal of the background screening industry.

See Below:

BusinessWeek has an in-depth article this week on business checks and the accuracy of those records.  Its a thought-provoking article that suggests that background checks are a “Wild Wild West” where nothing is regulated.  Moreover, despite the headline that question the accuracy of background checks, the article itself doesn’t contain any statistics or studies to show that. Rather, they use anecdotes to make the point.

But when you look at the article, I was struck by one paragraph that’s buried deep in text:

The company [ChoicePoint] conducts 10 million background checks annually and estimates it has about 20% of the U.S. market. “The number of complaints vs. transactions is very low,” says Katherine Bryant, vice-president for consumer advocacy. The [Federal Trade Commission] has logged 695 complaints against ChoicePoint since 2005, some of which related to [a single] identity-theft episode.

So, for those doing math at home,and if these numbers are to be trusted, there is a 0.000023 percent complaint rate over the last three years filed with the Federal Trade Commission for background checks conducted by ChoicePoint.  That doesn’t strike me as a huge issue whatsoever.

More

by Jason Morris

We were just notified about this from the Executive Director of NAPBS®. The good news is NAPBS® has been successful 100% of the time when these issues arise. This Bill was passed 46 to 17 by the Rhode Island House.

We have written about these issues many times before. We support ex-offenders and their rights to enjoy gainful employment. In fact, GOSO (Getting Out and Staying Out) is one of our corporate philanthropy’s. We just think employers have the right to know! Employers have the responsibility to ensure a safe working environment for their employees, customers and vendors. Its a slippery slope when putting forth legislation such as this. My hope is that the RI Senate quashes this effort, if not, a Veto from the Governor is also possible. Please take the time to write to the RI Legislatures about this issue!

House OKs bill to destroy criminal records

By Katherine Gregg
Journal State House Bureau

PROVIDENCE — Advocates for convicted criminals scored a victory on Smith Hill yesterday.

Despite objections from the attorney general, the state police and the governor, the House voted 46 to 17 for a bill to quash and destroy the records of criminal cases in which the accused was given a deferred sentence, usually in exchange for sparing the state a trial by pleading no contest or guilty to a crime.

The bill, which is now headed to the Senate, calls for the automatic destruction of all such records at the end of the deferral period — which usually runs five years, regardless of how serious the crime or the criminal history of the offender as long as he or she stayed out of trouble in the interim.

The bill sailed through the House with no debate yesterday after a heated — but short-circuited debate earlier this week — in which proponents assured their colleagues it was aimed at helping people remove from their records youthful indiscretions that were keeping them from moving ahead in life, school and jobs, and opponents noted the bill goes much further than the state’s existing expungement law in that it is not limited to nonviolent crimes by first-time offenders.

Beyond that, critics argued that it could be used as a legal club to try to prevent newspapers from publishing facts that the public already knows about crimes — or perhaps should know — if they involve candidates for a job, including public office. Current state law bars people with certain felony convictions from obtaining state licenses to work in nursing, social work and auto repair: this would provide a way around that.

“So now we are rewriting history and telling the newspaper they can’t refer to something that everybody knows about?” Rep. Laurence Ehrhardt, R-North Kingstown, asked rhetorically.

More

by Nick Fishman

Thanks to our good friends at NAPBS for updating us on this recent announcement from United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) concerning the E-Verify program. You might recall that E-Verify is the former “Basic Pilot Program” that allows for Instant Confirmation of Employment Eligibility.

USCIS ANNOUNCES ENHANCEMENTS TO E-VERIFY PROGRAM Improvements Will Focus on Decreasing Mismatch Rates for Naturalized Citizens
WASHINGTON—U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced today improvements to the E-Verify employment authorization program that will reduce an already low mismatch rate, while also streamlining and increasing the effectiveness of the overall program.
Today’s announcement comprises the first two phases of an overall three-part enhancement for
E-Verify aimed at decreasing the mismatch rate for naturalized citizens.
“Less than one percent of all work-authorized employees receive a tentative nonconfirmation through E-Verify,” said USCIS Acting Director Jonathan Scharfen. “While this is a very small percentage, we believe every employee who is authorized to work in the United States should be instantly authorized by the program. We’re confident that the enhancements we’re launching today will help us achieve that goal.”
Starting today, the E-Verify system will include naturalization data, which will help instantly confirm the citizenship status of naturalized U.S. citizens hired by E-Verify employers. Naturalized citizens who have not yet updated their records with the Social Security Administration (SSA) are the largest category of work-authorized persons who initially face an SSA mismatch in E-Verify. Additionally, a naturalized citizen who receives a citizenship mismatch with SSA can call USCIS directly to resolve the issue (in addition to the option of resolving the mismatch in person at any SSA field office.)
E-Verify also will now include real time arrival data from the Integrated Border Inspection System. This additional data source will reduce the number of immigration status related mismatches for newly arriving workers who have entered the country legally.
USCIS also plans to initiate citizenship status records information sharing with SSA to further help prevent tentative nonconfirmations from occurring. This effort will improve the efficiency of E-Verify by providing to SSA with the most accurate and timely citizenship status information. E-Verify also plans to check against Department of State passport records in the near future to even further reduce mismatches.
More than 64,000 employers participate in E-Verify with approximately 1,000 new enrollments weekly. The Web-based system allows participating employers to electronically verify the employment eligibility of newly-hired employees. E-Verify evolved from the Basic Pilot/Employment Eligibility Verification Program originally developed in 1997 and made available to employers as a Web-based system in 2004. USCIS operates the program in partnership with SSA.
Additional details on the program are available on the E-Verify Web site at www.uscis.gov/e-verify.
– USCIS –

by Jason Morris

We have been predicting consolidation in the Applicant Tracking System (ATS) arena for the past few years. It came as no surprise to us that Taleo will be acquiring Vurv Technologies. This blog posting may surprise our readers who are used to reading about background checks and employment screening. We felt this announcement would impact our readers in the HR and Recruiting space so we decided to post it.

Taleo to acquire Vurv Technology

Unique breadth, scale, experience and global capabilities created by this acquisition produce a market leader in the fastest growing segment of enterprise software.

This acquisition will create the largest company in the talent management software sector and the third largest Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) vendor in the world, serving 48 of the Fortune 100 and more than 2,800 small and medium sized businesses worldwide. According to AMR Research, the company is part of the fastest growing category in enterprise software.

This acquisition will benefit the combined customer base by focusing the industry’s leading talent management resources on a single development investment. Two world-class development teams will join forces to create a talent management engineering Dream Team, sharing a unified vision of building the next generation of talent management applications. The combined company will benefit customers by providing the industry’s strongest global footprint, improved technology infrastructure and scalability, streamlined implementation and customer support, highly concentrated thought-leadership based on broader and deeper experience, and significant buying convenience.

No immediate impact is expected to Vurv or Taleo customers, as both product lines will be supported for the foreseeable future. In the months and years ahead, customers can depend on this new powerhouse to deliver innovative solutions as business needs evolve. The goal of the combined company is to incorporate the best of Vurv’s intellectual property and product line into the Taleo Platform, delivering a unified recruiting, performance and compensation solution. Upon completion, customers will have a simple migration path to a unified talent management platform that will appreciate in value over time.

The acquisition is expected to be completed by the end of June, after the standard regulatory review period is completed, and is expected to be accretive immediately.

by Nick Fishman

employeescreenIQ has learned that effective May 1, 2008 the New York Office of Court Administration (OCA) quietly increased the fee for checking criminal records to $55.00; a $3.00 increase from the original price established in 2003.

For those who regularly conduct background checks in this area, the already hefty price continues to mount.

by Natalie Beck

Yet another shining example of someone working with children that should not have been. This just goes to show that school officials should make sure that the proper screening procedures are followed before a person is placed in a position of authority at a school. It’s one thing for the employee/volunteer to have a criminal past, but quite another when this person is contributing to the delinquency of those he is supposed to be supervising.

Click here for the story

by Jason Morris

This week I attended the NAPBS (National Association of Professional Background Screeners) conference in New Orleans, LA.  This years conference was a huge success!  Over 650 attendees came to learn about such issues as: FCRA Compliance, International Screening, EEOC Title VII, Privacy, State Record Compliance, I-9 E-Verify and much more.  I myself gave a presentation on the History of NAPBS and the Background Screening Industry.

This conference also marked then end of my tenure on the NAPBS Board of Directors.  As past Co-Chairman I have sat on this board since its inception.  I will remain an active board member as an ex-officio and contribute to various committees.

employeescreenIQ will continue to post valuable industry information on employeescreen University!