Required Disclosure?

System

Do any of you forumites have a polcy that requires current employees to: 1.) disclose any criminal convictions to the employer that occured since their hire date, or 2.) disclose criminal arrests that occurred since their hire date. I am leary of #2 due to the obvious legal challenges that may be put forth, but I am not aware of any actual law (at least in Alabama) that prohibits requiring employees to disclose criminal activity. Understand also that disclosure does not automatically equate to subsequent termination or discipline. Does anyone have any insight or expereinece with this??

TN HR

Only for regulated positions such as CDL drivers which trumps any state law barring such disclosure. Not sure where you're headed with this, but I would seriously need to look the applicability and how I would audit the process. In other words, are you going to do periodic background checks on current ee's?

System

We have considered doing just that. As part of our application and employment policy, all employees must sign a "background investigaton consent" form, which gives us permission to investigate their background (criminal, credit, MVR, etc.) at the time of hire and during employment. This issue actually was first brought up by a client of ours asking if they can require their employees to disclose criminal activity because they saw in the paper one of their ee's busted for marijuanna possession, although he mantioned nothing about it. We also have toyed with the idea due to the fact that unknown criminal activity is obviously something that may impact their continued employability, especially from a "negligent retention" apsect associated with our business.

TN HR

Gotcha! I would think that it is permissable and perhaps has even been upheld by the courts under certain conditions. Personally, I cannot imagine getting wrapped around the axle if one of my production employees got a DUI, for example. I think you may want to consider setting some parameters.

LarryC

I do MVR record tracking. When an employee's driving record experiences some activity, I get an e-mail. All drivers of company vehicles, drivers who use their own cars for ocassional business purposes, forklift drivers and manlift drivers all fall under this scrutiny. I keep a running list of those who are "disqualified" from driving forklifts, trucks, and their own vehicles for company business.

On contract jobs at schools or some government places they general contarctor requires up-to-date background checks on our employees who will be onsite.

System

LarryC,
Do you have a policy or requirement for drivers to inform you whenever they get busted on a DUI?

LarryC

Yes, vphr, we do. Knowing that I will find out anyway, employees are rather forthcoming with information.

Applicants also become forthcoming with information when I inform them that we do background checks.

hrdir03nafcu

I'm not aware of any law, certainly not in VA, that would prohibit an ER from requiring disclosure.

But I would recommend that you refer to criminal CONVICTIONS, not to criminal "activity" in the requirement, if you implement one.

We do require job applicants to disclose any criminal convictions in the past 10 yrs; and our policy states that, at the ER's discretion, an employee who is CONVICTED of a crime during their employment may be subject to termination, depending on the nature of the crime they're convicted of.

We do not have a policy requiring disclosure of convictions during employment, however. But I think it would be hard for an EE to conceal from the ER if they're arrested, required to appear in court for trial, and convicted and sentenced to jail time: there would be a significant pattern of absences from work that would be pretty obvious after a time, I should think! Also, someone who's convicted would probably not be likely to disclose the fact, knowing that their employment is on the line. Although the requirement does get you one additional policy violation to hold against the EE-- i.e., their failure to report a conviction as required by co. policy-- in addition to the conviction itself.

System

But here's the rub - in cases like DUI which LarryC mentioned where the employee is required to be on the road, not necessarily a commercial driver, but say a sales person, then a DUI is a piece of info I want to know about. Same with a drug conviction. Someone who handles money as part of their job who gets convicted of writing bad checks or forgery - I want to know about that as well. But those convictions are often plead down to lesser offenses and often result in no time being served, and may even occur without the employer knowing about it (although admittedly, that's a slim chance). The question is; why not require disclosure of those crimes so that the employer is made aware of the situation and can evaluate what they should do at that point?

Whirlwind

Here is our policy:

"Each School employee shall report to the Superintendent within seven days of when the employee becomes aware of any arrest, indictment, conviction, no contest or guilty plea, or other adjudication of the employee for any 1) misdemeanor for an offense against the person or the family; and 2) felony of which the employee has not previously notifed the School or the Superintendent through written notification, records, or employment application."

This language is admittedly a bit tortured, but it comes directly from the standard teacher contract in my state and, as such, as been legally scrutinized from every angle. We decided to extend the requirement to classified (non-contract) staff as well. To back it up, we are beginning to re-check the criminal records of all staff on a rotating basis which will result in each person being re-checked about every 18 months.

System

Whirlwind,
just curious; who is "the person" or "the family"
regarding misdemeanors in your paragraph 1?

Whirlwind

I believe it's legalese from our state criminal code and pertains to crimes against individuals as opposed to property....crimes involving violence (e.g., assault), sex, etc.