Kress Employment Services -2007 Background Screening Trends

Launched in July 2007, the “Background Screening Trends” survey includes online responses from 277 HR professionals and executives who interact with the background screening process regularly.

Key Findings

• More information leads to better hiring decisions
• Better background screens yield better employees
• The intricacies of the laws affecting background screening are not fully understood

In addition, the survey revealed an important change in the selection criteria HR Professionals are using to select background screening provides:

HR professionals value three components of the background screening process: accuracy, turnaround times and customer service. This is a significant change from the past, when the primary selection criterion was cost. This is evidence of a maturation of the background screening industry in that HR providers are evaluating quality. Accuracy, turnaround times and customer service are the top selection criteria for respondents from all company sizes, selected by 90.6 percent, 87.4 percent and 69.3 percent, respectively.

Accuracy
Accuracy was ranked as the single most important criterion by 64.8 percent of respondents, and 94.2 percent of respondents completely agree that the accuracy of each screen is important. Respondents also indicated that accuracy is worth the time it takes; 77.3 percent of respondents said they believe further research is necessary to locate complete and accurate information in case of a discrepancy.

For More Information or to Get the Complete Survey Results Go To: http://www.kressinc.com/cfr_082807.htm

Violent Crime Reports Up 1.9 Percent In 2006: New FBI

Data Violent crime reports in the U.S. increased 1.9 percent last year compared with 2005, the FBI reported today. The rise was greater than that reported in the FBI's preliminary report for last year issued in June, which gave the figure as 1.3 percent. The new volume includes data from more law enforcement agencies. While the rate of violent crime-473.5 per 100,000 inhabitants-rose for the second straight year, it is the third lowest total in the past two decades. Property crimes rates dropped to their lowest level since 1987.

The FBI report showed murders up 1.8 percent, from 16,740 to 17,034. The preliminary report had murders up .3 percent from 2005. Robbery reports jumped 7.2 percent, from 417,438 to 447,403. Property crimes were down 1.9 percent. Of specific property crimes, motor vehicle thefts dropped 3.5 percent and larcenies 2.6 percent but burglaries increased 1.3 percent. The full data report can be accessed on the FBI's Web site.

For More Information Go To: http://www.fbi.gov/page2/sept07/cius092407.htm

New Foster Care Bill Includes Stringent Background Checks

Sen. Tom Niehaus recently introduced Senate Bill 163, a foster care reform bill spurred by an incident in Clermont County OH — the Marcus Fiesel case.

The 3-year-old boy’s foster parents bound him, tied him up and locked him in a closet where he died while they went to a family reunion in Kentucky for the weekend. The bill provides some requirements for additional background checks for foster parents. This would include a Bureau of Criminal Investigation and Identification background check and other additional checks that are required.

According SB 163, in part, the list of offenses that disqualify a person from providing out-of-home care, being certified as a foster parent, or being approved as an adoptive parent will be expanded to include the following: cruelty to animals, permitting child abuse, menacing by stalking, menacing, soliciting or providing support for act of terrorism, making terrorist threats, terrorism, identity fraud, inciting to violence, aggravated riot, ethnic intimidation, or two or more state OVI or state OVUAC violations committed or substantially equivalent offenses within the three years immediately preceding the submission of the person's application. It also allows a public children services agency to access the otherwise confidential criminal records checks for prospective out-of-home care providers, foster caregivers, or adoptive parents.

For More Information Go To: http://www.irontontribune.com/articles/2007/09/17/news/news374.txt

Average Cyber Crime Loss Increases For U.S. Businesses

The Computer Security Institute (CSI) recently released its 2007 report with news that the average annual loss reported by U.S. companies in the 2007 CSI Computer Crime and Security Survey more than doubled, from $168,000 in last year's report to $350,424 in this year's survey. This ends a five-year run of lower reported losses. Financial fraud overtook virus attacks as the source of the greatest financial loss. Virus losses, which had been the leading cause of loss for seven straight years, fell to second place. Another significant cause of loss was system penetration by outsiders.

For More Information Go To: http://www.secprodonline.com/articles/50783/

Manpower Employment Outlook Survey Reveals Steady U.S. Hiring Plans for Fourth Quarter 2007

U.S. employers plan to maintain a stable, yet cautious approach toward hiring in the final quarter of 2007, according to the seasonally adjusted results of the latest Manpower Employment Outlook Survey conducted quarterly by Manpower Inc. "It is not unexpected that U.S. employers have conservative hiring plans for the fourth quarter," said Jeffrey A. Joerres, Chairman & CEO of Manpower Inc. "The market forces that impact hiring do not conclusively point toward growth or decline, and that is a likely contributor to the prudent hiring trends apparent in the survey throughout 2007." Of the 14,000 U.S. employers surveyed, 27% expect to increase their workforces during the fourth quarter of 2007, while 9% expect to trim their payrolls. Fifty-eight percent expect no change in the hiring pace, and 6% are undecided about their hiring plans. The strongest fourth quarter hiring prospects reported globally were in Peru, India, Singapore, Costa Rica, Argentina, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Hong Kong. Italian employers again reported the least robust hiring plans globally. Employers in 11 countries and territories are reporting improved hiring plans compared to the third quarter, while job prospects are expected to improve in 14 countries on a year-over-year basis.

For More Information Go To: http://www.us.manpower.com

A Recent Workplace Violence Case Finds Employer Liability

Workplace violence, and liability for it, have long been twin nightmares for the American employer. The awful possibility that an employee with access to the workplace would go berserk because of some real or imagined slight, and attack people in a place where they work is the stuff of human resource managers' worst dreams. To then be sued after such an event is almost as bad, because it lays the blame for the deaths of coworkers squarely at the door of the employer. Such a case is Thacker, etc. v. DaimlerChrysler Corporation, et al., No. 05-CV-7285 (September 24, 2007), a recent decision out of a federal court in Ohio. On a terrifying evening in January, 2005, at Chrysler's Toledo North Assembly Plant, an employee named Meyers used his employee access card to enter the facility and then shot three people killing one of them. The murdered employee's wife sued, and the company attempted to defend by claiming a workers compensation bar to the negligence suit. Typically, workers compensation covers all injuries at work absent a showing of a deliberate act by the employer with the intent to injure the employee, or a showing that the employer knew of a dangerous process (where injury was almost certain) and required the employee to work in its presence anyway. Using Ohio law in effect at the time (the standard has now been revised by statute), the Court determined that a situation where an employer has or might have knowledge of a person who is a threat creates a duty for the company to defend its employees.

For More Information Go To: http://suitsintheworkplace.com/blogs/archive/2007/09/28/706.aspx

2007 College and University Professional Association for Human Resources Conference & Expo,
November 8-10, 2007, Baltimore , MD, USA, http://www.cupahr.org/conference2007/index.asp

Securing New Ground: The Business of Security, November 13-14, 2007, New York, NY, USA www.Securingnewground.com