The employment background check is a great tool small business managers can use to sift through candidates and find the best talent. By including it in the hiring process, companies can greatly improve hires by achieving:

• Greater assurance of a hire’s compatibility with the company
  
• Less legal and financial liability in case of a dishonest applicant
  
• Higher workforce productivity and ROI
  

Unfortunately for managers who might not have specialized experience with the procedure, the process of implementing and maintaining an employment background check policy can be a daunting task. Follow these four best practices to ensure an effective execution of a screening program.

Create Standardized Policy
In order to create a robust employment background check strategy, first create an official written set of rules and standards. By doing this, the company creates a clear standardized set of rules for human resources personnel to follow. It also protects the company from any claims of discrimination and can help during regulatory audits.

While creating the policy, the company should alter search criteria to fit the needs of specific job roles. For example, examining a candidate’s credit history might only be applicable for positions with access to the company’s finances. Requiring credit checks for all applicants can be susceptible to discrimination suits.

Use Checks with Expanded Criteria
Managers need to consider several factors regarding the employment background check program to ensure that it is as effective as possible. Factors such as the search time period, location and frequency can greatly affect the results. Based on the search criteria, the examination might have several gaps and loopholes that can miss potential red flags.

Additionally, many managers often opt to use an employment background check for full-time employees only, leaving the company liable to part-time employees with criminal backgrounds. By using searches with expanded criteria such as county, state and federal criminal searches in all jurisdictions where the applicant has lived in or worked, employers can cast a wider neat and as consequentially be more protected.

Don’t Limit the Search
The majority of small business owners only use an employment background check for basic criteria such as criminal and identity checks. By limiting the search, employers are prone to missing critical red flags or information that could otherwise play an important role in the hiring decision. Information such as employment and education history among other things can be verified to gain a better understanding of the candidate’s skills and character. By implementing multiple types of criteria into a single search, the procedure becomes much easier for the candidate to complete and the company to process.

Regularly Update Your Program
According to a recent small business survey, over 50% of respondents don’t regularly assess their screening standards. This indicates a massive source of liability for companies. Industry best practices and government regulations are constantly evolving and employers who do not update their policies to comply with these shifting rules can expose themselves to great legal and financial risks.

The most robust employment background check policies are generally reviewed about once a year. This, in addition to regular monitoring of updates to legislative requirements, can ensure that the company’s policy remains up-to-date.

About HumCap
HumCap is a premier Dallas TX HR and Recruiting company. We provide small to mid-size businesses assistance with various human resources and recruiting needs such as:

• Employment Background Check
  
• Safety Risk Assessment
  
• Employee Benefits/PEO Services
  
• HR Consulting
  
• Search and Contract Recruiting
  

Our expert HR professionals can help guide small and mid-size business owners through the employment background check integration and management process. With our years of experience supporting growing businesses, we understand the specific difficulties managers face in implementing such policies and can help them smoothly develop the infrastructure to support the changes.  

Contact us today for an immediate consultation!

Although the implementation deadline of the PPACA was recently pushed back, the issue of updating company policies to comply with federal employee benefits standards can be a daunting and confusing one for many small business owners. With many factors to be considered such as the number of employees, their classifications and how many hours each of them works in a week, a Dallas TX small business manager would be overwhelmed attempting to find a practical solution. Fortunately, a Professional Employer Organization (PEO) such as HumCap can leverage its knowledge and experience in the field to offer affordable and effective employee benefits health plan options.

Dallas TX PEOs such as HumCap have been providing local small to mid-size businesses that lack the resources for a fulltime in-house human resources department a viable and inexpensive alternative. In addition to providing quality employee benefits services, PEOs also offer a wide variety of other HR services, including:

• Human resources management
  
• Payroll services
  
• Talent management
  
• Time and attendance
  
• Employment Practices Liability Insurance (EPLI)
  
• Risk and safety management
• Recruiting

PEO services can efficiently undertake all the tasks that are not essential to the core business. By offering small Dallas TX businesses three valuable competitive advantages – money, time and expertise – the industry continues to grow. 

Affordable Services
Most Dallas TX small businesses can’t afford a full time in-house HR team. With their limited resources, they unfortunately often overlook critical operational tasks which can eventually lead to issues later.  By servicing multiple companies rather than just one, HumCap’s HR personnel are able to achieve economies of scale and offer services at affordable prices. With a local PEO administering employee benefits and other services, your company will be able to gain access to a team of experienced HR personnel for a fraction of the usual cost.

Quick Response
Dallas TX PEO services like HumCap often have to respond quickly when a client issue arises. Especially for projects with the goal of meeting the employee benefits and healthcare guidelines of the PPACA where deadlines are critical, our HR personnel have been trained to respond efficiently and effectively. With years of expertise developed around the most common issues faced by small to mid-size businesses, our HR professionals will be able to provide immediate assistance whenever necessary.

Experience and Expertise
Our HumCap team of HR personnel have years of shared experience solving a variety of problems experienced by business managers. If your company is experiencing difficulties meeting compliance with the PPACA employee benefits rules, we will be able to inform and guide your management in order to make the smartest decisions based on the company’s unique position. Small businesses will able to bypass all the perils of the new legislation by going to a PEO and asking them to “figure it out”.

About HumCap
HumCap is a Dallas TX human resources outsourcing and recruiting company that specializes in small to mid-size businesses in the Information Technology industry. Founded in 2001, the company offers a wide range of services that can benefit growing companies. By undertaking the operational tasks of the client, we allow them to focus on their core competencies – making them more agile and competitive.

Contact us today for more information!

Most small businesses are rarely aware of all their obligations in regards to workplace safety standards. Defined by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) with possible additions from state health programs, workplace safety standards are often difficult to comprehend and even tougher to implement. When combined with additional factors such as exemptions based on specific industries and the size of the company, the rules can be absolutely foreign to HR employees without proper specialized training.

Growing companies rarely have the resources to monitor and ensure that safety compliance processes remain effective as the company expands. Rather than divert their resources from value adding services, managers often end up overlooking this critical aspect of their HR policies. By overlooking preparations, companies can be left vulnerable to costly fines and penalties that can cause severe financial damage.

Fortunately, HR outsourcing agencies like HumCap offer extremely affordable OSHA and Safety risk assessment services for Dallas TX businesses. This service, administered by an experienced HR professional, can identify and spotlight areas of liability while offering recommended solutions.  Using HR outsourcing companies on a contingent basis allows growing businesses to efficiently utilize their resources to achieve the greatest effect.

Identifying Workplace Safety Issues

The first step of the OSHA and Safety risk assessment process is identifying any currently existing issues within the Dallas TX company’s policies, practices and facility maintenance. This allows the company’s management team to highlight the issues and begin formulating methods of solving them to ensure that the company is complaint with OSHA standards.

Proposing Workplace Safety Solutions

Following the identification portion of the Dallas TX OSHA and Safety risk assessment, the HR personnel can begin formulating potential solutions to the concern. The proposed actions will be practical, minimally disruptive options that can be easily implemented to protect the company’s workforce while reducing its liability in the case of an accident.

Preventing Accidents and Reducing Liability

By completing all the solutions proposed during the Dallas TX OSHA and Safety risk assessment process, a company can provide a greater sense of workplace safety for its employees while also protecting itself from additional liability in case of an accident. With updated workflow and safety processes along with recommendations regarding any facility maintenance needs, the company can effectively reduce the risk of workplace injury. This can lead to additional positive consequences such as increased morale and higher productivity that will ultimately benefit the business overall.

About HumCap

HumCap is a Dallas TX HR Outsourcing and Recruiting agency that provides a variety of services for small to midsize businesses which need personnel with HR expertise but lack the resources for full time HR employees. By engaging our services on a project basis, clients are able to access and utilize the experience and expertise of our HR employees at a fraction of the cost of an in-house HR department. Outsourcing their daily HR tasks to HumCap allows our clients to focus on their core business operations, resulting in a leaner, more competitive business.

Contact us today for immediate assistance!