by Natalie Beck

First, we have the Justice Department.  Now, the Department of Homeland Security.  Who will be next?  Place your bets!

By the way Department of Homeland Security personnel - forget Google in your background screening process.  A simple employment verification would have provided you with all of the information you needed know in order to avoid this obvious blunder.

Homeland Security’s Hiring Procedure Comes Under Fire

MINNEAPOLIS – One week after ousting disgraced Minnesota transportation official Sonia Pitt from the job she found at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the massive federal agency has taken a new step to beef up its vetting of potential hires.

From now on, more job candidates will have their backgrounds searched on Google.

The policy change, put forth by Kip Hawley, the top administrator of Homeland Security’s Transportation Security Administration, is one among several signs that TSA’s admitted blunder in hiring Pitt on the heels of her scandalous firing from the Minnesota Department of Transportation has become a serious issue in Washington.

The incident is raising fresh questions about the effectiveness of Homeland Security, which has been dogged by recurring questions of competency since it was created in the spring of 2003 to protect the country from a repeat of sophisticated terrorist attacks.

Members of Congress and a watchdog group say they are alarmed by the hiring of Pitt, who had been fired in November from her executive-level emergency response job at MnDOT.

The 44-year-old Red Wing, Minn., resident failed to return for 10 days from an unauthorized state-paid trip to Washington during the aftermath of the Interstate 35W bridge collapse.

MnDOT said she misspent $26,400 in state funds and made 94 hours of personal calls from her state-paid cell phone to a Federal Highway Administration official with whom she had a relationship.

Homeland Security officials are now investigating why Pitt continued to hold a federal security clearance after her MnDOT dismissal, whether her TSA application was complete and truthful, and whether cronyism or corruption was involved in her hiring.

Click here to read the rest of the article

by Natalie Beck

Scenario:  Your company is looking for a top level executive to join your team.  You use every type of screening tool known to man to make sure this guy is who he says he is.  You run a background check with all of the bells and whistles, a drug and alcohol test, an assessment test - basically, the works.  The results come back and this person is as clean as a whistle.  You hire him, he does a fantastic job and makes your company oodles and oodles of money.  Where could you have possibly gone wrong?

Well, for starters, did you screen his administrative assistant?  Or how about the mail room employee?  Or the intern you hired for the summer?

Understandably, there are some companies out there who cannot justify spending the money to screen lower level employees, even conducting the most basic of background checks.  But a new study out of the U.K. indicates that it is the lower level employees that commit more fraud than those top level executives costing employers millions and millions of dollars every year.

It might be time for those companies to re-think that decision, don’t you think?

Click here to read “So, Just Who Do You Think You’re Employing?“

by Natalie Beck

Yet another example of what can happen when proper background checks are not conducted.  We read (and blog) about companies who don’t conduct background checks or aren’t conducting them the way they should be all the time.  We’ve almost become immune to it because we see it so much.  But this story stirred me.  It’s almost unbelievable an oversight like this can happen.

On second thought, it’s downright scary.

Audit: Michigan OKed ‘Unsuitable’ Day Care Providers

By The Associated Press

Tuesday July 22, 2008, 11:08AM

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — A state audit released Tuesday shows Michigan put thousands of children at risk by authorizing sex offenders and other “unsuitable” day care providers between 2003 and 2006.

The audit said the Department of Human Services shouldn’t have licensed, registered or enrolled about 1,900 day work providers.

The audit said background checks done by the state weren’t effective in identifying perpetrators of child abuse or neglect, sex offenders and others.

State officials agreed with the audit’s recommendations. They said in the audit report that in April 2007, they began running additional background checks after being informed a main background check program wasn’t flagging enough offenders.

“We now conduct four background checks in addition to a central registry check,” said Lisa Brewer Walraven, director of the DHS’ Office of Early Education and Care. “The health and safety of children is a high importance to us.”

Walraven said the state terminated day care providers after being alerted by the auditor general.

Between October 2003 and March 2006, the state enrolled 116,585 day care providers to care for 273,364 children whose lower-income families get financial assistance for day care. About 4,600 of those children were put at risk, according to the audit.

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by Jason Morris

Virginia law recognizes a claim for the negligent hiring of an employee or an independent contractor. With respect to independent contractors, the Virginia Supreme Court recognized a rule of liability for negligent hiring of an incompetent independent contractor, adopting the principles set forth in the Restatement (Second) of Torts § 411 which recognizes a defendant’s “liability for physical harm to third persons caused by his failure to exercise reasonable care to employ a competent and careful contractor…to do work which will involve a risk of physical harm unless it is skillfully and carefully done.”

A U.S. District Judge in the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia recently applied this principle in the context of the selection of a tractor trailer truck carrier by a freight broker or third party logistics company. In Jones v. C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc., a tractor trailer truck crashhttp://www.valawyersweekly.com/usdc-va-western-opinions/2008/06/12/008-3-216-jones-v-ch-robinson-worldwide-inc/ occurred when an inexperienced tractor trailer truck driver crossed the median and struck another tractor trailer truck head-on. The plaintiff driver sued the broker that hired the negligent driver’s carrier under a theory that the broker was negligent in the hiring of the negligent driver’s carrier. The court initially found that the operation of a tractor-trailer involves such a risk of physical harm contemplated in the Restatement, and, thus, that the plaintiff’s claim for negligent hiring of an independent contractor was viable under the facts of the case.

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by Jason Morris

A triple threat, a hat trick, a triple double, how about three strikes and you are out? As an avid sports fan reading an article about sports at the University of Tampa the sports cliches are just poring out.  The negligent hiring doctrine lays out a simple rule; “If you could have known, you should have known!”  This case however brings a multi-pronged suit to the University of Tampa.  Aside from the obvious, Negligent Hiring, we also have Negligent Retention and Negligent Supervision.  I won’t regurgitate the reasons, you will see that in the article.  I will however stand on my soapbox and say “I told you so.”

No one is immune from a lawsuit.  We have been saying it for years, organizations are liable for not running thorough background checks.  Screening your employees is the simplest way of avoiding a very expensive lawsuit.

This story is a classic text book case. The Case should raise the standard of care when Colleges and Universities make decisions about why, how and who to screen.

Former Cheerleader Suing UT for Hiring Coach Who Raped Her in 2004

Complaint says background check and his prior arrests should have led to red flags

By: Charlie Hambos

A former cheerleader is suing the University of Tampa for negligently hiring her former coach, who pleaded guilty this year to raping her in 2004.

She says the university erred in its background checks and supervision of the cheerleading coach.

Heather Wienclawski, a former Spartan cheerleader and economics major, says she could not finish her studies at UT because she was raped by Thomas Andrew Hall, who had previous battery charges including one on a police officer, when he was hired part-time at UT.

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by Natalie Beck

I find it difficult to accurately convey my thoughts on this story as I think the title speaks volumes by itself. And, quite honestly, I’m extremely dumbfounded that almost seven years after 9/11, this type of oversight on the part of a major airline has even occurred.

We cannot stress enough how important it is for employers to conduct background checks on their employees. Furthermore, it is equally important to screen those who are working for your business in any capacity – volunteers, contractors, part-time, seasonal, etc. For the safety and security of your employees, customers, students, friends, and/or family that enter the confines of your business, you just have to know who you have working for you. You are taking a very big risk if you don’t.

Afghan Hijacker Found Working as Cleaner at Heathrow Airport

FOX News - Friday, May 16, 2008

An Afghan hijacker who won the right to live in England is working at Heathrow Airport in London as a cleaner in the British Airways training center, the Daily Mail reported.

Nazamuddin Mohammidy, 34, was among nine hijackers who in 2000 diverted an Ariana Airlines flight with 160 passengers on board to Stansted Airport in Essex, England.

The group, armed with guns and hand grenades, claimed it was fleeing the Taliban and threatened to kill all the passengers unless they were granted asylum. It took four days for the hijackers to surrender.

Mohammidy appeared in court this week after police pulled him over while he was driving a car around the new Terminal 5 at Heathrow, the Daily Mail reported.

At first authorities thought he was an unlicensed cab driver but were shocked to discover he was one of the hijackers and had a British Airways pass on him.

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by Natalie Beck

The Houston Chronicle has unearthed documents attesting to the Houston Police Department’s lack of oversight and security in their own precinct. It appears that the Houston PD hired individuals that either had criminal records or no background checks conducted on them and allowed them access to secure areas of the building. Within a six month time period, it was discovered that 30 guns, among other items, were stolen from the department’s property room. You would think that a police department that has sworn to protect its citizens could adequately protect themselves from the very thing they lock people up for every day. Let’s hope that other police stations around the country are doing a better job of securing their facilities from those who do not belong there.

Click here for the story

by Natalie Beck

It has been reported that an Australian doctor was hired to practice obstetrics although his background check stated there were restrictions to his license. Why conduct the background check if the results are immaterial to your hiring decision? There’s really no valid excuse for this company hiring this individual to practice medicine at their facility. A background check should never be just a formality in the hiring process. The results should be used for its intended purpose - to make sure that the person you are hiring can not only do the job but that they are the type of person you want working for your company. This company dropped the ball 100 times over.

Employer warned about mutilating doctor: NSW Opp

The New South Wales Opposition says it has proof a former doctor was hired despite a warning he was banned from practising obstetrics.

Dr Graeme Reeves allegedly mutilated and assaulted hundreds of women while working at hospitals at Pambula and Bega on the state’s far south coast.

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