Taking Chance Out Of The Hiring Process

Human Capital Magazine, 2002

“The integrity of our process depends on the integrity of our people,” says Neal Williams, associate general counsel for the cardiac rhythm management division (CRMD) at St. Jude Medical Inc., headquartered in St. Paul, Minn. For Williams, process refers to the high-tech manufacturing methods that create advanced electronic medical devices such as pacemakers and implantable defibrillators—the type of products upon which lives quite literally depend.

“This is life-critical manufacturing, and when you work in this type of environment, quality and public safety are everything,” says Williams. “In addition to these obvious concerns, there are Food and Drug Administration regulations. We’re also an ISO 9001 company, which requires us to meet an extremely high set of voluntary international standards for manufacturing and organization.”

In September 1997, Williams came to the CRMD facility in Sylmar, Calif., with a reputation as a skilled human resources attorney. In addition to his legal training, Williams had developed expertise in hiring procedures through the UCLA extension classes he teaches on the subject.

In advising St. Jude Medical’s human resources department, Williams’ top priority was to obtain employees with the needed regard for safety and quality in their work. To forward this purpose, he helped the department to greatly expand its background screening program while complying with the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and California’s maze of consumer privacy laws. An additional by-product of expanded screening was to reduce the company’s exposure for negligent hiring.

Negligent hiring describes a legal doctrine whereby an employer is responsible for the negligent or destructive actions of an employee when due diligence would have uncovered the employee’s propensity for these actions. Examples of violating this principle would include hiring a convicted child molester to work at a day care center or allowing someone with a driving-under-the-influence (DUI) record to run a delivery truck. The doctrine applies potentially to any firm but is particularly relevant to companies with life-sensitive responsibilities such as health care.

Ensuring compliance with the FCRA was a concern because the federal law had recently been amended to further protect the privacy of job applicants. Additionally, California, where most CRMD employees are located, provides the most liberal privacy protection of any state.

Williams noted in his review of the situation that many firms doing pre-employment screening in California had failed to adequately meet the new FCRA requirements and California law. For example, proper notifications had to be given and authorizations obtained from an applicant before any screening activity could be undertaken. An employer’s failure to follow these requirements opened the door to invasion-of-privacy suits from disgruntled employees or rejected applicants.

“We’re very proud of our high-caliber work force,” says Williams. “In addition to responsibilities owed to the public, we owe it to our employees to hire the best people we can to work beside them. One bad hire can ruin the morale and productivity of an entire department. Our employees appreciate knowing the new kid on the block has been thoroughly screened. It adds to their sense of personal security on the job.”

Williams counseled the human resources department on isolated behavioral and performance problems in the existing pool of employees. Convinced most of these would have surfaced before hiring had more comprehensive investigations been done, he began researching the design of a much more thorough program to address all future applicants.

To assist in the process, Williams called on a guest lecturer from his courses at UCLA, Barry Nadell, president and CEO of InfoLink Screening Services Inc., Chatsworth, Calif. Williams examined InfoLink’s capabilities compared to other providers he knew. He also checked for FCRA compliance. InfoLink was the only company Williams found that could provide the services needed and was fully FCRA compliant.

The process they devised together included normal background checks and reference checks pertaining to a person’s application. Criminal background was addressed, not only at the current place of residence but in prior counties of residence as well. The procedure included a Social Security check to validate a person’s identity as well as urinalysis drug tests and a department-of-motor-vehicles (DMV) check.

Williams wanted DMV checks done as an indication of applicants’ personal safety records, even if they wouldn’t be driving on the job. Were they persons who would place themselves or others needlessly in danger? Williams felt this question could be answered by a person’s driving habits. Certainly a person with a string of DUIs and serious moving violations didn’t possess the respect for public safety so critical in manufacturing cardiac medical devices.

“It’s probably the same all over,” notes Williams. “But when you get on a freeway in Los Angeles, you’re immediately exposed to a tremendous variety of safety attitudes, from courteous to inattentive to reckless. People with poor driving habits are a constant source of danger to those around them. You’ve heard the expression: ‘an accident waiting to happen.’ Safety isn’t a mind-set that just magically appears when you punch in on the time clock.”

Another part of a worker’s safety IQ is the ability to own up to mistakes or report needed corrective actions. Persons who lie about their past on an employment application aren’t likely to have the moral fiber to make such decisions. “Workers sign off on quality checks numerous times throughout our manufacturing process,” says Williams. “They must absolutely reject product that isn’t up to standard, even at the cost of pointing out their own mistakes. If they would lie to get the job, wouldn’t they lie to keep it?”

Once implemented, the new screening program had immediate impact. “We saw criminal backgrounds for individuals that could have been hired under the old system, offenses like solicitation for murder, assault with a deadly weapon and trafficking in narcotics,” says Williams. “What’s more, these were people who looked great on paper and had wowed their interviewers. If an applicant had been convicted of deadly assault on a police officer, what was the likelihood that person would respect and obey our unarmed supervisors?”

Apart from those with criminal convictions, some applicants had outstanding arrest warrants. “These situations need to be cleared up before an individual is hired,” says Williams. “If a person doesn’t bother to show up in court, how can we expect the person to show up for work? You can’t depend on someone who could be apprehended and jailed at any time.”

By more thoroughly screening its applicants, the CRMD noticed a drop in the background noise of typical employee relations problems. There were fewer incidents of friction between employees and fewer problem personalities for human resources to deal with. “If you’re tired of playing cop, then stop hiring people you have to police,” says Williams. The reduction in these problems freed company resources for more productive projects.

“The goal of the process isn’t to hire perfect employees,” says Williams. “But the way a person reacts to adversity is key. We can’t have a person whose method of operation is to cover up mistakes and avoid detection. Sometimes we find a person who’s made a mistake, admits it and has learned to turn his or her life around. These are the people who can become your most dedicated employees, because you’re giving them a chance no one else would.

“The bottom line is we need people of integrity to build products of integrity. A hiring process that includes attentive pre-employment screening and thorough background checks is the best way I know to find those people.”

© 2002 Hughes Communications, Inc.