Most NSW companies take employee police checks as they come. That is good, but there are particular issues of the relevance of an employee’s criminal background check that you should not ignore, too.
These include the following:
The Severity of the Offence
Besides an offence being old, you will want to reconsider your decision to hire an employee if the crime was very severe that the court served him/her a prison sentence. Such charges can ruin the reputation you have worked hard to gain with your stakeholders. However, if the offence did not land the applicant in jail, you can decide if you would make light of it.
The Applicability of the Offence to Your Company
Regardless of the minority of an offence, exclude a potential employee if the criminal background check you run highlights criminal charges that directly relate to the job position you are filling in NSW.
When the Offence Occurred
You have often heard that time is a healer. So, do not crucify a job applicant based on an offence they did five years ago. With time, people become aware that what they did (or used to do) was wrong, and choose to change for the better. You, however, will need to confirm from them or a reputable source whether they have been under a rehab program to reinforce a good behaviour.
Finding the right employee in NSW is not as complicated as you might have thought. With a thorough criminal background check, you can narrow down your choices to only a few candidates to make your company’s recruitment process more manageable. But, even with that, you should follow through with the above strategies to determine who best suits the position you are offering.