Posted October 8th, 2012 in Top Stories

Nilan Johnson Attorney Highlights Criminal Background Check Best Practices

According to a 2010 survey by the Society for Human Resource Management, 73 percent of employers conducted criminal background checks on all applicants. However, guidance and regulations issued in April 2012 by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) suggest that employers could face the threat of government scrutiny and class action litigation if they screen the criminal backgrounds of applicants and don’t individually consider each situation. Nilan Johnson Lewis Associate Veena Iyer recently authored a byline for The Corporate Counselor on this very topic.

Ms. Iyer suggests the following best practices that employers can adopt to limit their risk exposure:

• Develop a criminal background policy that complies with legal requirements and meets your business needs.
• Make a conditional offer before requesting criminal background information and performing a criminal background check.
• Ask about convictions only.
• Document the reasons for rejecting and accepting applicants with criminal backgrounds.

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