During busy seasons, store owners can find themselves ready to hire new employees to keep up with booming sales. But they should be very cautious since a new hire can positively or negatively impact their store’s environment. Learn why retailers should perform employee background checks.
Ensure Quality Customer Service
One of the most important pieces of information that most retail background checks search for is an applicant’s work history. Managers can learn about the person’s background in that history and why they left their last job. A best-case scenario could find you learning that they developed skills that will be useful in your store and that they left their last job on good terms.
A worse situation may be learning that the person’s former manager considered them a terrible employee and fired them for being rude to customers. If you perform a background check and check their references, you’re ensuring that this potential hire has the right skills and demeanor to keep your faithful customers coming back.
Maintain Workplace Safety
Another important reason why retailers should perform employee background checks is that they may help ensure that employees and customers stay safe in the workplace. When managers perform a background check, they can learn if the applicant has an extensive and recent criminal record or if they are a registered sex offender.
If a violent incident occurs in your store and you didn’t perform a check beforehand, others may consider you liable or accuse you of negligence. Therefore, if you perform a background check and learn about the potential hire’s history, you protect others and yourself.
Reduce Your Turnover Rate
High turnover is a problem that’s costly to the retail industry, so why not perform a background check? If you learn that the potential hire has a history of staying loyal to their employers, you can know you’re using time and money wisely when training them. If they have a habit of switching jobs regularly, it could be a complete and utter waste for you.
When you perform an employee background check, you make a good investment in your business and increase the certainty that you get good hires. You also cut down on your headaches and strengthen your operations so that you’re ready for the next big sales season.