Businesses should be rigorous in doing pre-employment checks on potential employees, especially if they are working with money or people, according to the Marlborough Chamber of Commerce.
General manager Brian Dawson said businesses, regardless of size, should have stringent human resources processes which included reference, conviction and credit checks on possible employees.
"Some organisations perceive less risk so wouldn't [do some checks], but for the sake of a small amount of cost and time it should be an important part of the recruitment process."
The comment follows the sentencing of Blenheim man Samuel Wiremu John Edmonds, 28, in the Blenheim District Court on February 10 where it was revealed he worked for a furniture removal company and who helped move his victim into her home months earlier.
He was sent to prison for seven years after admitting two charges of sexually violating the woman and one charge of burglary.
The name of the company was suppressed. Furniture removal companies spoken to by The Express after the sentencing said they vetted all potential employees through the Justice Ministry.
Mr Dawson said the thoroughness of checks depended on the industry and on who people would be working with or for.
Small businesses should ideally follow the same processes as large corporations when hiring staff, he said.
"Their [smaller businesses] nature is to be trusting and take people at face value, and while they're good at doing reference checks, the next step is doing police and credit checks."
Criminal history checks on potential employees are done through police or the ministry.
However, people who meet the criteria of the Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Act 2004 can have minor criminal convictions concealed.
Among the criteria are that the person must not have received a conviction in at least seven years or received a custodial sentence.
Police vet for organisations such as schools, hospitals and any other groups that deal with vulnerable members of the community.
The New Zealand Police website says the police database is searched for any information about the person and the information issued could include a conviction history and the sentence imposed for any crime.
A family violence report can also be part of the search and could include violent or sexual behaviour that may not have resulted in a conviction and any interaction with police.
Police vetting is not a complete background check and should be part of a "robust" recruiting and screening process, the website says.
Any other employer, organisation or individual will be referred to the ministry, which does similar checks with the consent of the person being vetted.
A spokeswoman for the ministry said the potential employee needed to fill out a form to give consent if the employer wanted to do a ministry check on them.
The Criminal Records Unit provides conviction information about the person to the employers, taking up to 20 working days.
- The Marlborough Express SIMON WONG
Mr Dawson's idea is fine if the person concerned has been convicted of a crime. There has been a case (and i am sure a few others) where a person had no prior police convictions for the crime therefore police check didnt pick up any problems. The person although had committed a prior crime (never charged) was able to continue to steal until finally found out,charged,convicted and made to pay.
No comments:
Post a Comment