The employee reference check is a critical and routine part of the hiring process for most companies these days. Chances are that you check education and qualifications, as well as verifying experience with previous employers. You might conduct international checks on immigrant candidates, and you might run credit checks on employees who will be in roles where financial ethics plays a role.
In some cases, employee medicals may be required, and you might even do a character check with non-work related references, just to get the whole picture. However, if you’re not also doing a driver license check, you may still be leaving yourself open for all sorts of trouble. Here is a brief description of what good driver license checks are, and why they are so important to your business, and your hiring process.
What Are Driver’s License Checks?
When you hire a worker who will need to drive for work-related purposes, you typically request a copy of their driver’s license. You obviously can’t have anyone driving on your behalf that is not licensed. Just having a license alone is not enough though, and if your potential new hire has a shady driving record, you might find that you have an administrative nightmare after you’ve made a hiring decision.
A driver’s license check goes beyond just verifying that a candidate has a license, and examines their driving record in detail. It raises all the possible red flags before you make the hire, so that you can address any issues before it’s all official, or, in the worst-case scenario, choose another candidate entirely.
In-depth driver license checks will include a history of traffic violations and fines, the type of offence (for instance, driving under the influence or speeding), as well as information about pending cases.
Why Are Driver’s License Checks Important?
There are many reasons that these types of checks are so important today, including:
- First and most importantly, if you are trusting your new hire with a fleet vehicle, they will be responsible for a major financial asset. You want to be sure that they are responsible enough to trust with tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of equipment!
- In some cases, drivers who have really bad records might not be insurable at all on your company policy, or the cost may be prohibitive. If you have promised them a company vehicle in their contract, that could result in a tricky situation.
- There is a certain level of liability associated with your employees when they use your equipment and vehicles. The last thing any employer wants is to be sued for the actions or inactions of their employees while operating fleet vehicles!
- If the position requires international travel, certain traffic violations may exclude a candidate. For instance, if they have a DUI, they would be inadmissible to Canada, so if the role requires Canadian travel, you would not be able to hire anyone with a history of that type of offence.
Comprehensive driver license checks will tell you everything you need to know about your candidates and more. Not only will they verify the prospective employee has the class of license they claim to, and that its current and in good standing, but it will also highlight any criminal driving issues you may want to know about, so you can make informed decisions. As always, that kind of knowledge is very powerful.
