Karen Caruso keynote speaker at 2011 Women’s Business Conference

Mind Your Business Founder Karen Caruso is set to be a keynote speaker at the 2011 Women’s Business Conference tomorrow, hosted at the Blue Ridge Community College.

The conference, which is free to attend, is a fantastic opportunity for Karen to tell the MYB story – providing business women an insight into how to go about creating and sustaining a successful business.

Pre-employment screening: how to get started

Many businesses understand the importance of background checks and pre-employment screening – knowing that such checks can protect their company and employees. However, the first hurdle is often the biggest. In this case, it’s getting started.

So here are a few tips for businesses to take notice of – how to get started with pre-employment screening:

Find a pre-employment screening service

A pre-employment screening service really ought to be your first stop. A service like MYB will be able to take you step-by-step through the entire process, identifying what your options are and how you can best protect your business.

Research before you make your choice. ‘Free’ and ‘Instant’ background check companies are often either fake or simply don’t do a very good job. This sort of information on people is neither free nor instant, so be sure to go with someone professional.

Decide which checks you will perform

There are various different types of background check that can be performed by an pre-employment screening service as part of a staff testing program, and it will depend on the job role you are performing the check for.

Examples of checks you want to perform may include criminal record checks, motor vehicle checks, resume checks, credit checks, education verification, reference checks, drug screening and social security number tracing.

As you can see, some of these services are essential for all businesses, but others are only necessary for particular roles. For example, an applicant for a truck driving position may require a motor vehicle check, but an applicant for an accounting role probably won’t.

Be consistent

It is important to continue staff testing once job applicants are hired. It’s imperative that you run a pre-employment screening check – but don’t stop at that. Continue to run checks on your staff regularly, as you never know what you might have missed the first time.

Be consistent and set out your plan for the future. How often will you run your checks on current employees? Ensure that your employees understand and know about all the decisions you’re making.

Hopefully those three pointers will allow you to take those first steps towards pre-employment screening, which will no doubt allow your business to continue down a path of success. If you have any questions, get in touch with us today and we can help get you started!

Illegal immigrant became sheriff despite background check

A former Garland County Sheriff’s Department cadet arrested for allegedly impersonating a sheriff’s deputy, and later determined to be an illegal alien, was put through a background check when he applied to be a cadet at the age of 14 in 2005, Sheriff’s investigator Bill House said last week. It is quite an astounding discovery to see such a breach of trust for a position of lawful authority.

Wilmar Arnulfo Perez, 20, was charged with a felony count of criminal impersonation of a law enforcement officer and misdemeanor counts of theft by receiving and possession of a blue light after he allegedly pulled over motorists dressed as a sheriff’s deputy.

House said that when he entered the cadet program a background check was conducted through the state computer system and he was found to have a valid Arkansas ID and “nothing else appeared.”

“This time, apparently using new technology they have now, when we ran his fingerprints through the FBI database who ran it through ICE, it showed there was a hold on him.” House stressed the department does mandatory background checks on all employees, including the cadets.

If convicted, Perez could face up to six years in prison on the felony charge and up to one year in jail on the misdemeanor counts.

While it is astonishing that such a mistake could be made in law enforcement, this reminds us just how important it is to continue staff testing once job applicants are hired. It’s imperative that you run a pre-employment screening check – but don’t stop at that. Continue to run checks on your staff regularly, as you never know what you might have missed the first time.

Reach out to Mind Your Business today for more information of employment screening. If you’re not currently screening your employees, you really are putting your business at risk. Get in touch to find out more!

Drug testing for welfare recipients: Update

This year has been a significant one for drug testing – in particular, drug testing for welfare recipients. One state in which this really sparked controversy was Florida, with Rick Scott implementing it in May only for others to be calling for the law to be repealed a couple of months later. In what has surely been one of the most controversial years for the welfare system, where do we stand now as we head towards 2012?

Currently, 36 states have implemented welfare drug testing – a huge leap since Michigan proposed the idea only 10 years ago. “You have to fight the scourge (of drug abuse) somehow,” said state Rep. Bill Dunn, R-Knoxville, the House sponsor of Tennessee’s drug testing bill. “If people are getting taxpayer money, the taxpayers have a right to know who that money is going to.”

Critics see these drug testing bills as an unfair slight on a struggling population. Note that when Florida instituted mandatory drug tests this year, all but 0.4% of new welfare applicants and 2% of current welfare recipients tested clean. While this may have saved the state a little money in the grand scheme of things, it certainly undermined Scott’s claim that a significant number of welfare recipients were drug users.

In Tennessee, the fiscal note attached to Dunn’s bill estimates that it would cost $2.3 million a year to test a quarter of the adults receiving aid this year, then $3.8 million to test another 25 percent the following year, and $2.4 million to continue testing part of the welfare population every year thereafter. “We want to punish drug users, not taxpayers,” Dunn said.

The trouble is, the worse the economy gets, the more people need social services. But the worse the economy gets, the less money is available to them.

What for 2012?

With federal and state budgets getting ever tighter, there is increasing pressure to conclude as to whether drug testing of welfare recipients is a cost-effective measure. Ultimately, does it save the taxpayer money?

In theory, it should. And in practice it is hard to imagine these bills failing. Taxpayers should not be passing over their hard earned cash to individuals who are using it for drugs. Whether or not supporters of the bills can achieve this before the critics have built a strong enough case for repeal, time will only tell.

CEO Karen Caruso meets President Obama

Mind Your Business, Inc. CEO Karen Caruso had the honor to meet Barack Obama on Monday, as the President started his two-day bus tour promoting his jobs bill with a visit to Asheville.

As North Carolina Small Business Person of the Year, Karen was invited as a VIP to sit on stage during Obama’s speech, and was honored to be able to have a brief chat with the President before he departed towards the next stop of his tour, Wilkes County.

MYB Founder Karen Caruso on stage waiting to meet President Obama

Speaking to more than 2,000 people at Asheville Regional Airport, the president vowed to take his jobs fight back to Congress, breaking a $447 billion plan that failed in the Senate into smaller, easier-to-digest pieces.

Obama said the Republican counterproposal to his jobs bill consists of gutting regulations, letting Wall Street “do whatever it wants,” drilling for more oil and repealing health care reform.

Creating jobs is “less about satisfying some wing of the party and more on common-sense ideas we can take to put people to work” and lift people into the middle class, he said. “If they [the Republicans] are serious about creating jobs, I’m ready to go.”

As a small business in North Carolina, and a company that relies on the productivity and continued success of other businesses, this jobs bill holds particular significance for this pre-employment screening service.

It was a fantastic honor for both Karen and Mind Your Business to be invited to such an event, and yet another accolade for the company in what has been a fantastic year.

Check out the front page of the Asheville Citizen-Times for Tuesday October 18th 2011. See our CEO Karen Caruso & Director of Drug Screening Pete Latrella circled on stage!

Quest Diagnostics release 2011 drug testing analysis

Quest Diagnostics have released an analysis of drug testing in the workplace over the first six months of 2011 – providing us with a look at a national level as to which substances are being the most widely used, and the common misconceptions in the industry. We want to share this information with you, to provide you with a transparency and insight which will help you to make your decision on pre-employment screening.

The report tells us that “American workers continue to use prescription opiates at relatively high levels”, while “Hydrocodone and oxycodones remain the most detected prescription opiates in the U.S. general workforce, with 1.3% and 1.1% positivity rates, respectively, in the first half of 2011. Compared to 2005 levels, oxycodones are 96% higher (0.56% vs. 1.1%) and hydrocodone 47% higher (0.88% vs. 1.3%) in positive prevalence.”

As one would expect, “marijuana, at 2.0% in the first half of 2011, holds a positivity rate higher than hydrocodone (1.3%) and oxycodones (1.1%)”. The line between medical marijuana and prescription drugs, and whether they should be allowed in the workplace, remains a blurred one so this statistic does not come as a surprise.

“The use and misuse of prescription opiates continue to capture national attention,” said Dr. Barry Sample, Quest Diagnostics Director of Science and Technology for Employer Solutions. “The findings of this study reinforce the need for businesses to develop and communicate clear policies around both the medical and non-medical use of these drugs, especially for their safety-sensitive workers. Empowering employees to perform duties safely, act appropriately when they perceive risk, and understand clearly the consequences of non-medical use of these drugs and of being found to have violated their employer’s drug policy all play an important role in worker and public safety.”

One aspect of the study we found to be particularly significant was how drug testing of current employees resulted in dramatically more positives for prescription opiates than pre-employment drug testing:

“Pre-employment screening revealed a 0.85% positivity rate for hydrocodone and a 0.65% positivity rate for oxycodones. However, random drug test positivity was nearly double, at 1.6% and 1.2%, respectively. Post-accident testing for hydrocodone and oxycodones continue to reveal dramatically higher rates of positivity at 3.7% and 1.8%, respectively.”

This emphasize the fact that it is not enough to simply perform drug tests on job applicants, but that it is important to test your current workforce also. Just because someone provides a clean drug test when they join your company, it does not mean they will remain clean throughout their employment.

To discuss how Mind Your Business can help implement drug screening at your business, contact us today. For more information on the Quest Diagnostics Drug Testing Index, visit www.QuestDiagnostics.com/DTI.

Small businesses at risk in hiring new employees

Small businesses may be at increased risk when it comes to hiring employees who abuse alcohol and drugs, according to USA Mobile Drug Testing ( http://www.usamdt.com ). Although the government encourages alcohol and drug-free workplaces, a large number of small businesses do not have the necessary policies or testing procedures in place to protect them against substance-abusing employees.

“The numbers are alarming. According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), nine of 10 small and medium-sized businesses employ heavy drinkers or drug users,” says Jeffrey Sardisco. “The SAMHSA study also found that 75 percent of illicit drug users were employed, primarily by small businesses.”

Sardisco says small and medium-sized businesses can avoid this by instituting drug testing programs and putting a drug-free workplace program in place. “Although business owners may think that starting a drug testing program is not possible because they fear the costs or lack the staff to manage it, in reality any business can put together an effective program,” he says.

Sardisco notes that having a drug testing program is far cheaper than paying accident or workers’ compensation claims and that some states offer discounts on worker’s compensation premiums just for testing employees.

The cost of drugs in the workplace is a big one. According to statistics from recent studies on drug abuse by American workers, workplace drug and alcohol use costs U.S. businesses an estimated $100 billion each year. U.S. Department of Labor studies show that workers who abuse drugs and alcohol are more likely to skip work or, when they are on the job, are one-third less productive, costing employers approximately $7,000 a year. Employees using drugs are also more likely to cause workplace accidents or file workers’ compensation claims.

What’s the answer?

Well, if you’re a small business you need to understand just how important drug and alcohol testing can be. It may seem expensive, but in the long run it is entirely worth it.

Get in touch with Mind Your Business, and we can explain to you how we can help in a cost effective and productive way!

Why a pre-employment screening service is essential to your business

Although most employers understand that pre-employment screening is a great way to protect their business and employees from dangerous situations, many dismiss it as a something which is too much work and too complex to find time to get around to.

That’s an understandable position, but is exactly what a pre-employment screening service is there to help with. A pre-employment screening service will do all the work for you, and provide you with a safe and productive working environment.

What does a pre-employment screening service do?

A pre-employment screening service will run employment checks on job applicants and current employees, to ensure that you have not/do not hire an individual that could put your business at risk. For example, a criminal record check is part of the pre-employment screening process. Should an applicant have a criminal history of violence, pre-employment screening would detect this and you can make your hiring decision accordingly.

Put simply, an employment screening service will ensure that you know any information regarding applicants or employees that could put you at risk. By providing you with such knowledge, you are in a better position to make any hiring decisions.

What are the services they can provide?

There are various different types of background check that can be performed by an pre-employment screening service as part of a staff testing program, and it will depend on the job role you are performing the check for. Examples include criminal record checks, motor vehicle checks, resume checks, credit checks, education verification, reference checks, drug screening and social security number tracing.

As you can see, some of these services are essential for all businesses, but others are only necessary for particular roles. For example, an applicant for a truck driving position may require a motor vehicle check, but an applicant for an accounting role probably won’t.

Where can I find a pre-employment screening service?

There are many companies that claim to provide pre-employment screening, but do your research before choosing the one you wish to move forward with. Lots of companies claim to provide “instant” or “free” employment checks – a general rule of thumb is to avoid these. Obtaining such information on individuals is neither free nor instant, so companies claiming such are often fraudulent or only offer very basic information.

In order to be sure your money is being well spent when hiring a pre-employment screening service, you want a company that has a great history with trusted and valuable testimonials. Furthermore, find one that can clearly explain to you how they can help and why you should choose them.

This is an important decision for the future of your business, so don’t take it lightly. Get in touch with Mind Your Business, Inc. today to find out how we can help you protect yourself, your employees and your company.

College faces lawsuit for drug testing implementation

Linn State Technical College, a two-year public college in Missouri, became the first public college in the country to implement a mandatory drug testing program for its students this semester.

This is a brave step by the college to apparently prepare students for “profitable employment” upon graduation. “Drug screening is becoming an increasingly important part of the world of work,” the school said. If students refuse to be tested they face possible expulsion.

As expected, it didn’t take long for the college to face a legal challenge regarding the mandatory testing. The ACLU filed a federal class action last Wednesday alleging the school has violated its students constitutional rights.

“It is unconstitutional to force students to submit to a drug test when there is zero indication of any kind of criminal activity,” Jason Williamson, a staff attorney with the ACLU Criminal Law Reform Project, said in a statement. “The college has demonstrated no legitimate need to drug test its students that outweighs their constitutionally protected privacy rights. This is an unprecedented policy, and nothing like it has ever been sanctioned by the courts.”

While drug testing is an increasingly important part of the working world, the question begs as to whether it ought to be applicable to students too – or is this a step too far?

The college said that its drug screening program will “better provide a safe, healthy, and productive environment for everyone who learns and works at LSTC by detecting, preventing, and deterring drug use.”

Brown, the college’s attorney, told AP last week that the scope and breadth of the testing program is unique and that “there aren’t many colleges as unique as ours.”

Missouri federal judge Nanette K Laughrey yesterday granted the ACLU’s request for a temporary restraining order, ordering the school to halt any additional analysis of urine specimens that it had already collected and instructing a drug testing company not to release any results it may have compiled.

What are your thoughts? Do you think that drug testing students is a useful insight for them into their future in the workforce, or a constitutional breach?

U.S. tests airport background checks

Frequent flyers in the United States who undergo prior government background checks are being allowed through airport security screening faster under an initiative being developed by the Transportation Security Administration told us last week, according to Reuters.

The PreCheck program, whose goal is to speed up the airport security process, is being tested in Miami, Dallas, Detroit and Atlanta for the moment, but could be expanded to other cities if successful, TSA officials said.

Fewer than 10,000 travellers are now participating in the program, which allows selected frequent flyers boarding American Airlines and Delta Air Lines flights to use express security lanes — and avoid the hassle of having to remove coats and shoes when they pass through detectors and screening devices.

The participating passengers, who must be U.S. citizens, have undergone prior background security checks.

“It’s a faster process” said TSA’s Federal Security Director Mark Hatfield. “Your laptop can remain in your bag, your see-through liquids bag can stay as well. You don’t have to do all the break down and separation,” he said.

The PreCheck program reflects efforts by the TSA to address passengers’ frustration at, and criticism of, stringent airport security checks. Other initiatives include a proposal to spare small children from pat-downs. TSA officials said that background checks would help focus agency resources on high risk individuals, while making it easier for low risk travelers to board their flights, because sufficient data about them would already be on file.

Participants in the first phase of the PreCheck program, were invited to join the program by Delta and American Airlines after the companies had determined they were frequent travellers who fit a series of characteristics.

The criteria and information included travel history and dates of birth, but TSA officials declined to spell out all of the qualifying details for security reasons.

They said however that the scheme would extend to other airlines and other cities if the logistics were successful and if enough passengers agreed to go through background checks. ”When this program is fully up and running and populated we could expect throughput at the PreCheck lane … to exceed throughput at other lanes,” Hatfield said.

Travel industry representatives welcomed the initiative: “We are encouraged to see TSA.L Administrator (John) Pistole moving away from one-size-fits-all screening procedures toward a risk-based approach” said Roger Dow, president and CEO of the U.S. Travel Association.