Retail owners continually struggle to find ways to prevent customer theft, but it’s even more challenging when thinking of ways to deter internal employee theft. Unfortunately, retail shrink totaled $61.7 billion in 2019, and employee theft significantly accounted for around 58%. The issue of employee theft worsened during the pandemic’s peak, with a 3.8% employee theft increase in 2020, but the problem is far from over.
Retail owners suffer in many ways when employees steal, including lost revenue, damaged brand reputation, inadequate safety for staff, lack of product availability and compromised customer experience. Additionally, customers appreciate it when retail owners perform employee background checks, with 67% of those polled responding that they are more likely to shop at a retail store that has done employee background checks than those that haven’t.
Many retail shop owners are conducting background checks to ensure that every employee shares the company’s values and will adhere to a code of ethics and honor.
If you want to take this vital step in your hiring process, you might wonder, “Do retail stores do background checks?” They do.
Our team has developed a guide to provide information about background check procedures, employment laws and anything else that might concern you.
What Is a Standard Retail Background Check?
A standard retail background check focuses on preventing and reducing theft, mitigating risk, ensuring staff and customer safety, and thoroughly screening employees. Thorough and professionally executed employee vetting screenings can help you protect your business from a bad hire.
What Does a Retail Background Check Consist Of?
- Start with gathering key identifying information, such as full name and aliases, social security number and current address.
- Perform a national background check and a national theft database check.
- Conduct an employment history verification, credit check, drug testing, criminal history and driving record check.
How Long Does a Background Check Take for a Retail Job?
The time it takes to conduct a background check search and receive the results varies, depending on factors such as the employee’s work history and your HR team’s skill level at employee vetting research. You can speed up the process by working with a professional screening company that conducts multiple intensive employee screenings daily.
How Far Back Do Background Checks Go for Retail Jobs?
Every pre-employment background check must comply with all Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) requirements. One crucial FCRA requirement is limiting how far back you may research specific types of information, such as arrests without convictions more than seven years before the pre-employment screening.
Additional information you cannot search for and use for hiring decisions outside the seven-year prior mark includes civil judgments and adverse credit information.
GVN Conducts Retail Background Checks That Ease Your Mind and Protect Your Business
Our Global Verification Network team of professionals can help you combat the high rate of employee theft with robust background checks that give insight into each employee’s character. We help you ask the right questions to get to know and build trust with prospective employees.
Further, we know all the legal specifics of screenings, such as the appropriate timeframe for an investigation and whether and how you can legally use the information we discover.
We serve retail businesses, including department stores, boutique shops, convenience stores, supermarkets, dollar stores, retail outlets and much more. Contact us to learn more about how we can help you hire the right employees to protect your retail business from theft and ensure it thrives.