Surge in ‘invasive’ character checks on new staff

The country’s largest trade union group says some employers are engaging in “invasive” character checks on jobseekers, including on their financial circumstances, which could make it more difficult to secure employment.

The Irish Congress of Trade Unions said it was aware of the growing use of pre-screening of jobseekers by employers, as a survey suggested 39% of retailers had stock stolen by staff.

Ictu legislation and legal affairs officer Esther Lynch said some employers were increasingly running credit checks on people before hiring, using publicly available information in what she said was an unwarranted focus on someone’s perceived trustworthiness.

She said in one case she was aware of a company that had offered employers the services of a lie detector test, while other employers are said to have demanded Facebook passwords.

A survey of 33 retailers has found 39% of them had stock stolen in their stores in the past two years by staff.

However, there is no figure for the actual number of cases contained in the study, carried out by Retail Ireland, the Ibec group that represents the retail sector. Instead, the survey found 52% of retailers said they had experienced an increase in crime in the last two years, while 82% had experienced shoplifting.

There is supporting data to illustrate the scale of the shoplifting problem, with a recently published Retail Ireland report Tackling the Black Market and Retail Crime estimating that shoplifting equates to an overall loss to businesses of €512m a year.

Retail Ireland director Stephen Lynam said the findings were “shocking, but not surprising” and that retail crime has risen steadily during the recession. He said employee theft was “the highest rate in Europe”, although the exact number of cases was not provided.

Mandate, the trade union representing many employees working in retail businesses, declined to comment on the survey but Ictu’s Ms Lynch said: “It would be quite wrong to characterise Irish employees as being untrustworthy. We have increasing reports from employees of employers trying to get an awful lot of personal information [from people] before they give them a job.

“We would be very unhappy if on foot of this [report] it would be normal to run credit checks on people under the mistaken belief they are going to steal from you,” she said.

She said Ictu had heard of an increasing number of checks being run on people during recruitment, including “very invasive character checks”. She said in some cases any increase in background checks on prospective staff could be down to fears that a troubled credit history or financial situation may mean that person is more likely to steal from their employer.

“If the argument goes that if they are in financial difficulties they are more likely to steal, then employers will feel more justified in looking into their financial wellbeing,” she said. Ms Lynch added this could be viewed as “an old-fashioned attitude towards debt”.