One reason to conduct background checks on potential employees is to avoid theft in the workplace. A recent national fraud examination organization found that the average loss to a company from fraud and theft from its employees is $9 for every employee each day. Added up, that is over $2,000 a year per employee.

In many cases, businesses that are the victims of workplace theft who did not conduct pre-employment background checks later find out that the employees who are guilty had records of such charges in the past. This is why the College of Southern Nevada is now strengthening its background check policy.

CSN recently decided to make this change after an employee who was accused of stealing money from the college was found to have past criminal convictions. The worker in question has been charged with trying to deposit several thousand dollars from the college into their private bank account in August. Had CSN conducted a more thorough background check, this could have been avoided.

After discovering that this individual had failed to disclose their criminal record when they applied for the job, CSN fired this employee. At this time, the college is not disclosing the individuals name because both local law enforcement and CSN campus police are still investigating the case. According to CSN’s chief of police, no arrests have been made.

CSN is currently beginning the process of conducting background checks on all staff members who work with the campus’ money, said a spokesperson in a recent news release. In addition to these individuals, CSN also wants to make sure that investigations are conducted on employees who handle “sensitive” information such as Social Security numbers of other workers and students. This will hopefully cut back on the risk of identity theft.

Prior to this incident, CSN required all job applicants to disclose their criminal histories, but only ran background checks on workers who were applying for positions in child care and public safety.

Despite the recent accusations, Spokesperson K.C. Brekken recently said that background checks on all employees may not be necessary. According to her, the information yielded during such investigations would have little to no relevance on how an individual could perform certain jobs on campus.

Labels: Background Checks