The hospitality industry strives to provide travelers a home away from home, with all services catered and diverse amenities accommodated. Consumer standards continue to climb in both services offered and level of personal service received, whether they patron a small bed and breakfast or a large, multi-national chain.
Therefore, it is crucial to conduct background checks on any and all employees hired. While each position may call for a customized screening program to ensure that a company hires the correct applicant for a given role, certain checks should be run on every hospitality employee. The following outlines some common screens run on hospitality employees based on their position within an organization.
Food Service Positions
While food service jobs tend to see a high level of turnover, companies would be remiss not to run at least a basic screening on each employee. These checks are particularly important because of how quickly a restaurant’s reputation can be ruined by negative customer reviews.
At a minimum, employers should conduct an SSN Trace to verify past places of residence. Once these are determined, a National Criminal Search should be run with an emphasis on the states in which the candidate has lived.
It is also advisable to run the applicant through the National Sex Offender Search, particularly if the applicant will have any interaction with families. A drug test also makes for a valuable addition to the screening panel as drug abuse presents both safety and legal risks.
Customer-Facing Positions
Employees who serve customers on a regular basis represent the hospitality brand, which makes a certain personality and respectability crucial to the business’ success. All of the recommended screenings for a food-service industry worker should be performed, and the following additional checks should also be included in the screening program.
An employment history check can verify that an applicant has the experience that he or she claims and can provide a better idea of the applicant’s level of consumer engagement at previous jobs.
A drug test should certainly be included for this position to provide the business some protection against hiring an individual with an abuse problem into such an intensely interpersonal position.
A credit check is often included as it may provide a good indication of a candidate’s responsibility and trustworthiness, which are important for employees that handle money on a regular basis.
Management Positions
Your managers oversee your staff, materials, and facilities, and they handle customer and organizational issues. Therefore, managerial positions call for more experienced and thoroughly trained employees.
Managerial candidates should undergo the same screenings as customer-facing applicants, and businesses should also be sure to conduct education and professional license verifications. Companies may also run social media background checks to determine if a candidate’s capacity for individual brand management will translate well to organizational brand management.
Regardless of which screenings you decide to run on your potential employees, the most important consideration you can make is for how the checks are conducted. While you can run these screenings in-house, such a process is often fraught with legal risks to the business due to imprope