Human Resource Materials Archives

Is Uber Doing Enough To Screen Drivers?

Uber has been making news recently, as their background screening policy has come under fire. They recently settled two class action lawsuits regarding their additional “Safe Rides Fee.” The issue wasn’t necessarily the additional fee (which will not go away, but will be changed to a “booking fee”), which Uber states is necessary to offset the costs of the background checks done on drivers and the 24/7 support they provide. Part of the issue was the language used; they referred to the background checks as “industry leading” and perhaps misled customers to believe that their background checks were more involved or in depth than others.

This has found to be not entirely true, as other news had circulated over the summer where four Uber drivers were found to have criminal records, ones that would have prevented them from becoming employed as a taxi driver in Los Angeles, leaving some to wonder how thorough their checks are.

Uber and other companies, such as Lyft, have been game changers in the taxi/rideshare industry. Because the business model is so different than a standard taxi service, it is more important than ever to ensure that drivers are thoroughly screened, and references to ‘industry leading’ background checks should be fully disclosed to give customers a peace of mind when using these services.

Upon review, it appears that Uber is utilizing a strong software program to conduct background checks, including social security confirmation, driving history, criminal records, and a credit check to name a few. Like most companies, adding a social media background check would provide an additional layer of security and potentially uncover issues that may not be found through traditional background checks.

Social media background checks have become more sophisticated and detailed than merely running a Google Search on an individual. Like standard background checks, they are FCRA compliant and provide detailed history of an individual from online resources.

While these new ride sharing programs are gaining steam and providing a popular option for those seeking services, it is more important than ever for these companies to provide a rock solid background check and be transparent with their customers as to what they are doing to keep riders safe. While this will not solve 100% of the issues, a thorough background check of all angles, both standard and online, is a good proactive means to providing the highest quality drivers to their customers.

Hiring? Here’s a Reason To Use a Formal Monitoring Service

It’s no surprise that hiring managers are turning to social media when making hiring decisions; in fact, research indicates that at least half of hiring managers will use social media research. Job candidates are encouraged to clean up their public facing social media content when job seeking, and with good reason.

However, before your firm takes to social media research to further vet potential candidates, it’s important to have the right safeguards in place to be sure that your methods are not controversial or lead to problems later on.

I recently came across a study that looked at discrimination in hiring practices, specifically related to social media research. Carnegie Mellon conducted a study to look at such discrimination. The article explains the study as follows:

“Alessandro Acquisti and Christina M. Fong of Carnegie Mellon University recently conducted a large-scale field experiment about social media use in hiring. First they created Facebook profiles for fictional job candidates, striving to make them identical, except for indications of religious affiliation (listed as Christian or Muslim) or sexuality (gay versus straight). Next they submitted applications for these fictional job candidates to more than 4,000 employers. These did not indicate religious affiliation or sexuality. The only way to determine the candidates’ religious preference or sexual orientation was to search for and examine their Facebook profiles.

About 33% of the companies in the sample seem to have examined the candidates’ social media profiles. The researchers found no statistically significant discrimination against gay candidates. They did, however, find that employers in Republican areas of the United States (based on election results) exhibited significant bias when extending interview invitations — against Muslim applicants, and in favor of Christian applicants. In the 10 states with the highest percentage of votes for the 2012 Republican presidential nominee, only about 2% of the Muslim applicants were invited for interviews, compared with about 17% of the Christian applicants.”

While this is one study, the article states that these statistics fall in line with other similar studies.

It’s a well known fact that factors such as race, religion, and marital status cannot be used in consideration of a potential employee; I don’t think that hiring managers seek out this information, but do come across it when conducting basic social media research, which typically includes a Google search or even searching for a candidate on Facebook. However, when doing so, one cannot “unsee” this type of information, and it is very difficult to prove that the specific information that cannot be used for consideration wasn’t.

So, what’s a hiring manager to do?

Simply put, hiring managers need to turn to third party services for such social media research, or social media background checks as they’re often referred to. The background checks conducted by third party vendors have built in benefits that many do not even consider when using social media to research candidates, such as:

The searches are more comprehensive than a typical Google search: it takes a lot of time to manually research a person using Google, and even longer to cross reference potential content that may be tied to a candidate, or tied to someone with a similar name. The programs used for third party services is intuitive, deep, and efficient in determining identity.
You don’t see what you’re not supposed to: formal social media background checks are compliant with the FCRA, and will not provide content that falls within protected data. There is no opportunity to “see” something that shouldn’t been seen. The good news is that, should hiring practices be questioned, it will be much easier to prove that the data used in the decision making process was compliant.
A third party source creates a layer of protection: using a third party vendor for social media background checks can give weight to the social content collected and used as part of the hiring process. By showing that it is an independent source, it can be helpful in protecting the company with regard to its hiring practices.

Social media content is a valuable tool in ensuring you hire the right people; the right hiring decisions lead to the strongest team. It’s wise to be as cautious as possible to avoid any potential issues, and using a third party source might be the best bet for your hiring managers to take advantage of.

Will What You Post on Social Media Affect Your FICO Score?

While that’s not happening yet, it may play a role in the future.

The latest news reveals that FICO is rolling out a potentially new way to determine credit scores. This new method, referred to as FICO XD, is being used as a pilot program. According to the website, this new FICO score will be calculated using “alternativedata sources to give issuers a second opportunity to assess otherwise unscorable consumers.”

What does this mean? Essentially, they are partnering with Lexis Nexus Risk Solutions and Equifax to look at more widely spanned information, such as utility bill history and public records, in order to potentially provide credit to those who may not have a credit history as of yet, for example. This is an attempt to be able to offer credit to an untapped market – those who don’t have a FICO score and/or cannot be properly assessed using traditional methods.

While Lexis Nexus is geared toward public information that is more “informational” in nature, it would not be a surprise at all if, in the future, FICO utilizes social media content as a factor in determining one’s score. Seem farfetched? Maybe. Then again, think of how social media content is currently being used. What once started out as strictly social content is now being used by brands for marketing data, HR departments to make hiring decisions, and by law enforcement and law firms.

How could social data be used as a factor in generating a FICO score? By looking at an individual’s social media history, it can uncover some potential trends that may be in favor of that individual (or not). What if an individual’s social media accounts are filled with images of parties and commentary on how the rent is late yet again, but they aren’t concerned? What if an individual posts content about being “wasted yet another Friday night?” This is an informational, relatively loose predictive analysis when it comes to financial stability or financial risk, and one that FICO may eventually turn to in calculating credit risk on individuals.

That being said, we are still a way from that happening. Data collected through social media is still in murky water, and it will take some time to sort out how it can and cannot be used in situations such as this one. Hiring managers have quickly learned how to use social media to their advantage while maintaining strict FCRA standards; it won’t be long before other institutions follow suit.

Heads Up To High School Seniors and Job Seekers

Times change, people change, and social media habits change. Regardless, when it comes to social media, our “past selves” live on indefinitely. While there’s been plenty out there that attempts to educate people on their “online persona” and serves constant reminders about being responsible and presenting your “best self” on social sites, people tend to get caught up in the activity without thinking much about it until it’s needed.

A good time to start looking at your online personality, so to speak, is when you are at a point where it matters. Two events come to mind – those who are entering their final year of high school and are already starting college applications, and those who are looking for a new job.

Why, you may ask?

It’s no surprise, if you’ve been paying attention, that college admissions offices and HR departments around the world are turning to social media research as another means to learn more about potential candidates. While applications, cover letters, and references tell part of the story, both industries are realizing that monitoring and researching a candidate’s social media activity gives even deeper insight and understanding of the people they’re looking at.

While you may think to yourself that you’ve got your social sites properly set with regard to privacy settings, and you’ve cleaned up your photos and even Googled yourself, it’s time to think a bit more about what recruiters, employers, and college officers may see and potentially use in their decision making process. Below are just a few examples:

1. Channel your “younger self” – this is especially true for the late teen/early 20’s set. Social media was new and “fun” back then. I’ve seen the transition in my own teenagers – they started years ago thinking Google chat was the be all end all, and then moved to Facebook, and finally Twitter and Instagram. It’s hard to keep up with all of the changes, and this set often has the “out with the old, in with the new mentality.”

In running a personal social scan for a young adult recently, data was pulled from a prior Twitter account they had since forgotten about. This was created in the person’s first year of high school, and they used it as a “secret” account – they had one that they knew their parents monitored, so, being a typical teenager, created a second account that the person used for conversations they didn’t want their parents to see. While there may not have been anything harmful on that account, it was good for the person to be reminded that it is still out there and delete it prior to graduating college and starting the search for a job.

Social media research can uncover these types of abandoned accounts that have long been forgotten, conversations on message boards when they were more popular, and other content that someone may have forgotten about. Using a third party service to conduct this type of research allows for efficiency in cleaning up one’s social profile before sending out applications.

2. Mistaken identity: while there is nothing you can do in a case like this, it’s good to be aware in case it’s brought up as a potential issue. Consider a young man who was applying for his first post college job. In conducting social media research, data was collected that showed someone with the same name in the next town over was arrested the year prior for a DUI. They were close in age and the similarities were enough that the young man was concerned. Going into the application and interview process, he was aware that this information existed. Should a potential employer discover this information, the young man was armed with the knowledge that it existed and would be able to easily speak to the fact that it was not him, and be able to provide further information to prove this point. Knowing ahead of time can make a difference in cases like this.

3. Ensure your privacy settings are correct: any social media content that is collected can only come from public content. That is, if your privacy settings are set correctly, your content cannot be picked up in social media research. If you’re congratulating yourself at this point because you recently went through your social sites and updated your settings, think back a bit. If you didn’t set up your privacy restrictions when you first set up the account, are you sure that content posted prior to updating your settings is really private? Sometimes it is, but sometimes it’s not. By utilizing a social media research program, you will be able to easily find out what information is readily available to college and/or hiring staff. With the constant changes to privacy settings and updates, it’s difficult to keep track of what is set up where. Before you start the application process, having a social scan conducted on your behalf will give you peace of mind that what is out there is what you want others to see, or, in some cases, give you the opportunity to clean things up.

Social media has given the world another glimpse into who you are, and, as we are learning, it can reveal much more than can be found on applications and cover letters. Because it is social, it’s more revealing, and colleges and companies are starting to realize this. Many are turning to social media monitoring programs to help with this process, an in turn, individuals are starting to see the value in running scans on themselves. Advanced preparation can go a long way to ensure that you land your dream job or are accepted into your first choice for college.

Best Practices For New Hires, Employees, & Former Employees

Social media adds a whole new layer to the employment process, particularly from a Human Resources and Corporate standpoint. It’s no longer “just” social media – the online conversations provide a wealth of information that is easily collected and used to make many decisions, and employment issues are no different.

From the hiring process to dealing with former employees, there are many key points related to social media that companies need to consider.

1. Pre-employment/hiring process: it’s no secret (or surprise) that Human Resources departments are turning to social media to learn more about candidates. This information is another layer that helps them make good decisions during the hiring process. More than a Google search, social media research can dig deep to find out more about a candidate through what he/she posts online. Here are some tips to make sure this is an effective process that keeps you safe legally:

Develop a written policy that explains how social media content is used in the hiring process. State what can and cannot be collected to be used to make a hiring decision. Aspects like religious beliefs and marital status, for example, cannot be used in the decision making process. Make sure the policy is clear and detailed so there is little room for potential candidates being able to sue on the basis of discrimination.

Use a third party to conduct the search: the hiring manager ideally should not be the one conducting the social media scan; this alleviates any potential or perceived bias. Using another individual to conduct the searches will provide a layer of protection, as they only provide relevant information that can be used in the decision making process to the hiring manager. This protects the hiring manager in that if he/she doesn’t ever see the other social content, they could not have used it. For this reason, many companies chooses to outsource the social media monitoring process, as these firms use sophisticated programs and are aware of HR laws, so you will only be provided with the most relevant, legally allowed information.

2. Current employees: your employees are a representation of your company. This is another area where monitoring social conversations can be important – do you have employees bad mouthing the company, or sharing proprietary information? It’s relatively easy to find out, and continual monitoring programs will help with this process. Here are some tips to make this an efficient, effective process:

Have a solid social media policy in place: employee handbooks should reference the company’s social media policies and expectations. Similar to signing consent for release of information and the ability for phone conversations to be recorded for quality assurance, employees should be required to sign a similar document stating that they reviewed the social media policy, understand it, and will adhere to it as outlined in the employee handbook.

Make clear the policy on different social aspects, such as employees connecting socially online with their supervisors, for example. This is the new workplace dating, and while social connections are simply connections and do not signal a deeper relationship in most cases, this is something that needs to be considered. In a similar vein, accounts like LinkedIn need special consideration – if an employee builds contacts during employment, what specifications are in place for post employment? Are those contacts “fair game” for former employees to contact at their new job? Does it depend on the contact? Make sure it is spelled out in your policy.

For further protection, some companies will require employees to post a disclaimer on their personal social content. Something along the lines of: “the content posted is my personal opinion and does not represent the opinion of XYZ Corporation.” Of course, this is something that would be more relevant for larger corporations and/or senior members of the company, but something to consider.

3. Post- employment: while former employees are on their own and no longer represent your company, social media monitoring can be useful to ensure in this area as well. Here are some tips on using social media monitoring for former employers:

Continue to monitor a former employee when non-compete/non-disclosure/non-solicitation factors come into play: this is one area where social media is extremely useful. Similar to insurance companies finding content posted by those fighting for workman’s comp that negates their claim, social media monitoring can help identify breaches.

Monitoring adherence to social media policy: hopefully your company’s social media policy outlines what happens when an employee leaves with regard to online content, connections, etc. Ensuring that what is considered “company property” is not being used by former employees can be tough, but again social media monitoring can help with this.

Social media has really impacted the employer/employee relationship, and, while the above sounds daunting and too much to monitor, the good news is that there are social media companies who can handle this for you. They have the time, expertise, and software platforms available to make this a painless process. Our company has worked in the social media landscape since 2007, and it’s been riveting to see the evolution of how social content is used, particularly from an employment standpoint.