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Understand Your Risk! |
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"According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) homicide is the top killer of women in the workplace, and the second leading cause of death for all workers" Educated Hiring Decisions What You Don't Know Can Hurt You! Business is booming and it's time again to add more people to your staff. With the job market having the lowest unemployment in years the demand for qualified help has companies hiring people they would have possibly rejected in the past. Many good candidates are long gone before you even make your offer. Timing is critical. Verifying your candidates references can be time consuming, leaving you with the tendency of bypassing this important step in the hiring process. Perhaps you weren't able to complete a verification recently because a past employer didn't return your call and you needed to make a decision. Have you ever asked yourself how valid the information an applicant submits is? Unbuttoning White-Collar Crime ``Employee fraud can occur at any level within an organization and the motivations can be as wide ranging as the methods used. A low-income clerical worker living beyond his or her means may be the first suspect that investigators question when assets go missing, but it is often the respected senior executive who makes off with the most money. Fraud investigators can't take anything for granted." Armored Guard, Friend Charged With Murder, Wheelock's Father Says Son `Flipped Out' And Is Sorry. ``Thomas Wheelock , 20, of San Ramon, and his alleged accomplice, Peter York, 20, of Danville, were each charged yesterday with first-degree murder in the slaying of 30-year-old Rodrigo Cortez of Pittsburg. Wheelock was arrested Thanksgiving Day in Utah. Police say he has confessed to fatally shooting Cortez in Oakland on November 24 - their first day working together as guards with Armored Transport of California Inc. -- and then fleeing with $300,000 from the armored car. "Wheelock had worked for Armored Transport for just two months. He was on probation for a 1995 burglary..." At the time of his arrest, Wheelock was in possession of a letter sent to him by the state Bureau of Security and Investigative Services, rejecting his application for a guard license. The letter was dated November 5 and cited Wheelock's burglary conviction. A copy of the letter was not sent to Armored Transport because the bureau did not know at the time which armored car company had hired Wheelock..." Grant At Fault, Slain Student's Mother Alleges Claim, Calls Janitor's Hiring Negligent The mother of Michelle Montoya, the Rio Linda High School senior murdered on campus last May, has filed a wrongful death claim against the Grant Joint Union High School District. The claim by Pamela Montoya-Schleeter asserts that the district was negligent in hiring a substitute janitor named Alex Dale Thomas, who has been charged with the rape and murder of Montoya. Thomas was on parole for manslaughter at the time and had been allowed to work for the district for about a month -- including two days at Rio Linda -- even though a criminal background check... had not been completed. "Checking Up On Job Applicants" Los Angeles Times, Jane Applegate, 12/26/95 It doesn't matter what kind of business you own-you can be a victim of employee wrongdoing. Steve Gilfand, vice president of a small computer document imaging company in Skokie, Ill., has his own horror story to share. No one thought to check the background of the woman hired as an accounting assistant at Computer Recognition Technologies, Inc. a couple of years ago. She was on the payroll for six months, but it took only 90 days for her to forge $120,000 worth of company checks and deposit the money in a bank account opened under an alias. The missing funds showed up on an internal audit, but it was too late-the money was gone. "We found out that she was on parole for check forgery and substance abuse when her parole officer called because she violated her parole," Gilfand said" At the same time she was stealing from CRT, she was trying to defraud an insurance company on a claim involving personal belongings. Two fraud investigators set up a sting and arrested her. She was eventually sentenced to serve eight years in prison. "Violence-Prevention Strategies Limit Legal Liabilities" Personnel Journal, October 1994 When an employee is attacked or killed on the job, it's emotionally devastating. It also can be expensive. Not only does such an incident cause lost work time and lowered productivity, but depending on an employer's actions before the violent act, it can result in multimillion-dollar legal settlements as well. "...Employers must take steps in preventing violence from erupting in their workplaces. Employers can protect themselves... by employing prevention strategies that include pre-screening." |