Employment verifications

Trish

When taking employment verification calls, does anyone require a signed release of the person in question, before even telling the caller that a person is employed with you? With all the privacy compliance issues happening, I'm leary to tell anyone anything.
THANKS

Don D

I have found that requiring a signed, faxed or mailed release to be more of a hassle for us in HR that we want. If the caller identifies himself as being with a company checking work background, we will release dates of employment and job title, nothing else in the absence of a release or subpoena. I've been told that is company information we are releasing as opposed to personal and its certainly not confidential. We get many calls obviously from people who are not employers checking work records; ex wives, girlfriends, bail bondsmen, mommas, etc. We don't release to those when we recognize their illegitimacy. Going the signed release route puts HR to task: They have to receive a fax, digest it, fill it out insofar as possible, fax it back and file it. In the event we do get a signed consent form via fax or mail, we just indicate that same limited information and send it back with a note that our policy restricts our information release to the above. But we all in HR tend to have a variety of networks with whom we might under some circumstances reveal a bit more, now don't we? x:-)

Ruskanen

We started doing verifications by fax only, because of a time issue. We were always interrupting our work to look up information on the computer. Sometimes you get a signature from the employee, sometimes you don't. And, then you have the documentation for their file if it ever comes back to haunt you. Also, if you request a fax, it shows you how serious someone is about needing the information. Creditors generally won't send faxes to confirm work history. It saves you the trouble of looking up the information for them, or their exes, mommas, daddies, bailbondsmen, etc...

DB

I work for city government in Illinois. Without a signed release (or court order) I will only state if the individual is a current employee or not. It sounds mean but I've had two cases in two years (one nasty divorce and one family feud) where someone tried to obtain information by claiming they were a mortgage firm or some other legitimate company.

Requiring written authorization has not created any time issues for me and I like to have the paper backup in case an employee ever questions me the information I release.

moneyman

We will verify (confirm) what the caller gives us, but will not impart any other information without a release. We figure that if the caller had a resume or employment application with information on it, we can safely say yes or no to the information that they have been supplied by the former employee. Any requests for other information must be made in writing with a release.

We also have all applicants that we interview sign a release at the time of their first interview.

March22Collector

I give hire date, termination date, and position freely. If anything else is asked, I ask the requester for a signed released to be faxed to me. Even then I may not answer all the questions on the form, only the ones I feel comfortable with. Don is right, there are some instances where you will give more information out (to those in your network). After all, when you are hiring you'd like all the info you can get, right?

dianec

It is still not clear to me if it is it a violation of the Privacy Act if we give out ANY information on a current or former employee without a signed authorization from the employee or former employee. Any one know for sure?

Don D

Good faith employment verifications are not a violation of privacy rights or anything else. The recommendation would be that you never release anything speculative or presumptive or that which may be subjective or opinionated. Such things as questionnaires (even from government agencies seeking references) that ask you to comment on attitude, would you rehire, dilligence, appearance, productivity, team player, etc., should never be answered. Also, all verifications should be made or given by Human Resources, not supervisors or floor managers or co-workers. You should be the control point and your policy should so state with admonitions that all such calls received at the company should be directed to your department. Be honest using only facts that are supported in your personnel files. And, remember that anything you release may wind up in hands other than the ones you sent it to, so, you'd better be sure it is fact based and supported with documentation. Like joe Friday said, "Just the facts, ma'am." The second single biggest lie you will ever be told is this: "Just between us, off the record, this won't go any further......".

Pork

Trish, Don pretty much covered the concern; with the exception that in some cases your failure to let me know of a very violent person or caution in some way to indicate the individual demonstrated odd and unstable personality behaviors while employed in your organization and that he/she was fired, (TERMINATED, WE DON'T USE THAT "FIRED" TERM ANYMORE) for these types of behaviors, could cause the "attorney for the victim family" to look your way when we have hired this same individual and he/she then executed someone with these same behaviors that allowed your company to terminate. When I have these inquiries, I ask that the caller have their HR Manager to call me personally, then I exchange several communication methods with the HR manager or Director person to make sure I am dealing with a peer or counterpart. I let them "Don for instance" reveal to me the information he has. Where these behavioral subject areas may lead him to a positive hiring situation, I will caution Don to make sure He ask the applicant more about certain events or time frames and his/her personal relationship with our employment. After which, I offer to the inquiring HR (Don) the opportunity to call me back to confirm information later received. The legal world will go after every deep pocket, and if a string can be tied to another company the discovery process will bring it on. This is why we are in this don't tell, don't release HR world. We were brought into a law suit as a "direct gross negligent deep pocket" because our contractor who sub-sub-contracted for the removal of a construction piece of equipment located on our property. The sub-sub-contractor's son was sent as an untrained equipment operator driving a fabricated trailer rig to transport the equipment to another construction site. The driver/son was killed when the RTForklift rolled over on him killing him on our property. Our attorney fees and time spent got us removed but it took took two years and mega bucks. A settlement was reached with us not included. The sub-sub-contractor was at fault and He was the owner/father of the son that brought the suit. Ain't it a wonderful HR world and that is business today!