Risk taking is one of the realities of being in business today. For example court records and county record indicate that 60 % of new businesses do not make it past the first year of business (that’s about one in every 4) and over a course of a 5 year period this number rises significantly to three to five.
But just as every business owner knows these figures few realize that there are other elements emanating from the business itself that can dramatically add to the overall risk factor.
A company operating a fleet of cars for example, or even heavy machinery has an added element of risk given that such vehicles and or heavy equipment are manually operated. This human element adds to the element of risks and in doing so brings a whole new outlook to potential liabilities and real possibilities of legal litigation.
Just as all businesses are at the mercy of market forces, so can they also become victims of these human related forces which can indeed be even more damaging! These human related risks expose businesses far and beyond the confines of its geographical address. Indeed any business sending employees to customer’s homes, or dealing with children or disabled people or involved in other such interactive activities between employees and customers places itself in a position of added risk, with regards to liability issues.
Indeed in such cases, all it takes is a single mistake, a poor decision, a poor judgment from a company’s employee to cause problems such that they can have dire consequences and at times even deal a fatal blow to the prospects of the business.
Put differently, the actions of a single careless employee can significantly change the delicate balance between success and failure, and plunge the business in a situation which can at best be costly in terms of customer service and or litigation costs, or at worse be fatal to the business.
Whilst it is impossible for anyone to forecast such problems in order to take appropriate measures every steps of the way to prevent and protect against them, just imagine the additional hassles the business would face if it turned out that the “careless” employee was in fact a person who should never have been hired to begin with had court records been duly investigated as a matter or pre screening before being hired!
What if this individual had a recorded history of poor decision making or worse court records that indicated a less than perfect past! The tragedy in this instance would of course be increased by the fact that this could have been a perfectly avoidable situation which should never have been allowed to take place in the first place.
The issue of accessing a person’s court records as pre-screening is not always well received in our society. After all we live in a free world where the the right to privacy for all of us is something we should all be proud of, and thus whenever the issue of background check is raised there is a sense of guilt or discomfort showcasing everyone desire to stay out of other people’s businesses.
But as the responsible owner of a business, in a world where of lawsuits and legal judgment the question becomes not so much that obtaining court records on a prospective employee may on the surface seem to be inappropriate but rather that not doing so shows a definite recklessness on the part of the business owner!
By all means, individual liberties should indeed be protected at all costs but not at the expense of others who rely on the responsibility of their bosses to do everything they can to protect not only their personal safety but also their livelihood!
When the actions of one careless worker with a checkered history puts the livelihood of others at risk, then obtaining court records or birth records on all prospective employees is the very least a business owner should do to protect his business and the job security of the company’s other employees.
