The shift to remote work because of the COVID-19 pandemic has presented new risks that now need to be considered by employers, who have a legal duty to ensure that a prospective worker does not present a danger to the organization or its clients. Employers must avoid negligent hiring and once a hire is made, they are responsible for supervising their employees and ensuring that a worker’s retention does not present probable harm to the organization or its clients. Divided into three major components (public records searches, verifications and drug screening), background screening is a vital part of an employer’s hiring and retention assessments as it provides employers with the ability to reasonably ascertain a worker’s future actions based, in part, on their past behaviors.
