Asking about felony convictions

sandyq · November 2002

When an applicant leaves their application with me, I review it and ask any pertinent questions about their abilities to perform the position they apply for. We have a question about felony convictions on our application. Is it legal for me to ask what they were convicted of? Since we are a construction company and some of our contracts are with schools, we can't have a convicted child molester working on those contracts. This would not be information I would share with their foreman unless it would prevent the employee, once hired, from working on a particular job.

Rockie · November 2002

If you conduct a background check on your employees, you will be able to find out what the conviction was for; otherwise, I would ask on the application to give details. If they don't give you details, or will not tell you, I certainly would not hire them.

sandyq · November 2002

Thanks for your input. Another question; Is there a way to go about getting background checks done without any charge? I am the new "HR dept." at our company, so I am not familiar with a lot of procedures just yet. Thanks for your help.

Don D · November 2002

Our application includes additional questions, following 'have you ever been convicted of a criminal violation'. The additional fields ask, "Nature and disposition". No, you won't find anybody that does these things free. x:-)

JKlink · November 2002

Sandy:

Depends on what kind of an organization your with. IF your with a non-profit I can give you some suggestions on getting backgournds done for free.

sandyq · November 2002

Can you please direct me as to where I would go to have criminal background checks run. Thanks!

Don D · November 2002

Sandy: Go to 'Lobby' and click on the 'search' icon at the top. When the search screen comes up, type in the words 'background checks' in the keyword field. Then type in 'search all', 'subject' and 'search all' again. It will produce a screen that shows you five (5) recent discussions on background checks and there are some companies recommended in those discussions. Hope this helps. DD

sandyq · November 2002

Thanks again Don!

kpc · January 2003

We have an employee that has been with us for about 2 years. He has had one sexual harrassment complaint at the office that has been documented. He was recently arrested and charges with sexual assult and sexual assult with injury.
He is still being detained. My question is, can we suspend him pending investigation and charges or because of the previous reported and documented charge can we termintate him. Many feel he would be a threat to others especially in light of the recent charges. please let me know you thoughts on the matter asap. Thanks for your help.

Donna Lee Lange
HR Manager

LindaS · January 2003

Regarding your question about terminating your employee -

My understanding from your post is that this person is still being held in jail. Is this correct? If this is then I would let your attendance policy (assuming you have one) take care of this for you. In my experience with individuals being in jail, I have NEVER given an employee a leave of absence and excuse them from work while they are in lockup. They receive the same occurrences, etc. as other employees that miss work. Once they reach the maximum level, they are terminated. This happens regardless of what they are being held for.

The one caution I would make is that this person has not been convicted of anything at this point so I wouldn't terminated based simply on the fact that they have been arrested.

One last thing, if you do terminate due to attendance, they will probably get unemployment. I have tried several times in my state to "fight" their unemployment and have never been successful in this type of situations.

Good luck!

SDDCHR · January 2003

If the applicant indicates yes on the application, then of course I would ask them. And yes, it is legal.

Margaret Morford · January 2003

I have one other suggestion for avoiding costly background checks on some candidates. When they check the felony box, I always explain, "We do hire convicted felons depending upon what the felony was and what the job being applied for is. Obviously, we need some details about what happened." Let them explain as much as they wish. At the end of their explanation, ask for the name, location and telephone number of their probation officer. Do not use the number they give you! You may be talking to their best friend. That's the reason you ask for the location so that you can look up the number and ask for the probation officer. Then identify yourself to the probation officer and say, "Our organization will hire convicted felons depending upon the nature of the felon and the job applied for. One of your probationers has applied with us and gave us your name to get information about his/her felony conviction. Can you tell me what happened?" Then see if the probation officer's story matches the potential employee's story. If it does, you may want to spend the money to do a background check. If it doesn't, you've saved your company the cost and hassle of a background check.

Margaret Morford
theHRedge
615-371-8200
[email]mmorford@mleesmith.com[/email]
[url]http://www.thehredge.net[/url]

CARCRAZY · January 2003

The "safest" way to approach this is by asking for the dates and details on the application. In addition, if you conduct background checks, you can verify the information against the application. If they don't match, don't hire. However, if you don't conduct formalized background checks, you still have an obligation to find out what the felony was regarding.

Asking about felony convictions

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