Presented By: Debra Keller

In today’s litigious environment, performing background checks is more important than ever. An employer can improve applicant quality, reduce employee theft and violence AND protect themselves from negligent hiring, which is very much in the headlines today. However, not understanding what makes a background check truly comprehensive or the differences between bad data and good data can almost render a background check useless. Additionally HR professionals are challenged to keep up with the ever changing regulatory environment regarding the use of criminal records and consumer reports, while there’s NO education provided on background screening. This presentation covers comprehensive reports, data sources, credit reports and many legal compliancy problems and how to avoid them. It is a must attend for all HR professionals who are responsible for talent management, hiring & recruiting or compliance practices in their organization.

Learning objectives for this session include:

• Learning the real reasons an organization should perform employee background checks & the components of a truly comprehensive background check – what you need & what you don’t. This covers negligent hiring liability.
• Learning how to avoid common compliancy problems & hot areas for litigation, including applicant authorization forms, adverse action & what charges you can consider and for how long – including state & federal regulations.
• Learning where criminal records come from, what constitutes “good data” and the differences in manual county searches vs. ‘online’ instant searches – and the dangers instant data poses.
• Learning about ‘order review’ and why you it’s important, fingerprinting (and why it’s not), credit reports (can I run them?), state and federal searches.

Debra Keller is VP of Operations at Reference Services, Inc. (RSI), one of only 61 background screening firms in the entire U.S. (out of 2000) to be nationally accredited. Deb is a national authority on background screening, regulatory compliance, the FCRA, the use of criminal records in the employment process and the EEOC ‘New’ Guidance of 2012. She’s a frequent speaker at State SHRM conferences across the country, is speaking at the 2016 NATIONAL SHRM Conference in DC and has published background screening articles in numerous HR & trade publications. Deb is one of only 77 people in the U.S. to hold the FCRA Advanced Certification credential, which designates an advanced expertise in the FCRA & background screening. It’s equivalent to passing the bar for her industry. Deb leads an internal team of background screening professionals, as well as a top industry compliance team. She and her firm care for clients in all industries, of all sizes, in all 50 states & internationally.