Screen your background screener.

Not all background-screening providers are created equal. An employer must confirm their methods and information sources to avoid potentially expensive legal liability if a shoddy background check leads to trouble in the workplace.

That's the urgent message from Deb Keller, president and chief compliance officer at Total Insight Screening. Screeningrelated incidents have emerged as one of the most frequent and costly areas of litigation against employers, Keller said in a Business Management Daily webinar in November.

Legal exposure stems from problems ranging from the use of insufficient applicant authorization forms to deadly violence in the workplace by a perpetrator whose criminal record was never flagged in a substandard background check.

It's not only the backgroundscreening provider who will be deemed at fault. The employer will ultimately be vulnerable to a lawsuit.

Avoid liability

"The courts will hold you accountable," Keller said. "They'll say, 'It's not our problem that you didn't do your due diligence and didn't pick a good screening firm.'"

A thorough background check explores the job applicant's violations in the federal, state and local judiciaries, plus various government agencies that identify enforcement violations in sectors such as banking and health care.

When an employer hires a background-screening company, the employer should ask the contractor the name of the data aggregator it uses to search and parse records, Keller said in the webinar "Background Screening: The Deep Dive Into Criminal Records."

If the screening firm is unwilling to name the data aggregator or says its data list is proprietary, Keller said that is a "huge red flag," indicating potential holes in the search for vital records.

Know your jurisdictions

Keller also suggested asking the background-screening provider for its matching protocols, an important aspect of two-step quality assurance. An example of a matching issue is that some states reference a convicted criminal by exact date of birth...