Gone are the days when temporary/contract workers could only be found in low-level clerical jobs. Contractors are now working in nearly every industry and level of employment, all the way up to C-suite executives.
As mentioned in a recent www.recruitingblogs.com article titled “Screening Temporary Employees – A 2010 Hiring Trend Makes It More Important Than Ever,” that means that contractors working in these higher-level positions may now be privy to private company and employee information previously only accessible by permanent (direct-hire) employees. So where companies may have previously only conducted background screenings on their permanent staff, it is now becoming important for them to ensure that contractors are screened as well. After all, they don’t want to find out the hard way that their newest contract IT programmer, who has access to all of the company’s computer files, previously did time for identity theft!
In addition to access to private information, there is just the simple safety of the company’s other workers and customers to consider. Take for example Los Angeles county where officials learned that a long-time contractor working in one of its health care clinics was a convicted rapist. This discovery led the county to suspend its contract with one of its largest staffing agencies. The officials had no idea how many, if any, of the more than 2,000 temporary workers in their hospitals and clinics had been screened or how many may have criminal backgrounds!
So who is responsible for conducting these checks? Many companies assume that their staffing agencies will handle it, but as illustrated in the above example, assuming is not enough. The article advises companies that it is their responsibility to make sure checks are conducted on all employees, temporary or permanent.
If you use FoxHire as the back-office service provider for the contractors you place, you can assure your clients that ALL contractors we employ are background screened. In addition, we conduct drug testing on all of our healthcare candidates. So with FoxHire, clients can feel more comfortable about the people they are bringing into their workplaces!
