It’s Important to Check an Employee’s Credit Profile, and Here’s Why

It’s Important to Check an Employee’s Credit Profile, and Here’s Why

Most people with employees would like nothing more than to be able to trust them implicitly, if only because it would make everybody’s lives a little easier. Unfortunately, this is not a practical solution in the modern workplace. Financially irresponsible issues have the demonstrated tendency to make the same bad decisions repeatedly. Each time, they tell themselves that what they’re doing is going to work: they deserve it, or something that isn’t functionally related to what they’re doing has changed somehow.

Why Check an Employee’s Credit Profile?

• Potential Theft or Misuse of Information. Employees have access to a lot of potentially damaging information, should it be improperly used or make it into the wrong hands. Employees often have direct access to cash; they also have access to identifying information on customers, business associates and job applicants. They may have access to other financial information, such as credit, financing, or leasing information. If you don’t think your employees have access to something that could hurt your business, give the matter a little more thought. Are you more concerned with what they’re capable of doing, or what you’ve told yourself they “would” or “would not” do?
• Sense of Entitlement. An employee with a history of financial trouble will have a record of liens, bankruptcies, and even civil judgments made against them. Such an individual has gone through an extreme amount of stress. This kind of stress often feeds an addictive need to perpetuate bad habits and behaviors. A person who has stolen money in the past and wound up working low-paying jobs as a result, for instance, is more likely to steal again because “they deserve it for all the trouble they’ve been put through.” That this is due to their own actions rarely enters the equation.
• Personal Responsibility. A person’s financial history is like a fingerprint for their sense of personal responsibility and self-discipline. If someone has repeatedly mishandled their own finances in the past, how likely are they to be careful and considerate with the personal information of other people? It pays to be aware of a person’s history going in, in order to be able to make a well-informed decision with regard to their hiring.