实施和监督有效的劳动力就业筛选计划需要一定的专业知识。因此，公司越来越认识到寻找或提名主题专家 (SME) 的重要性——该专家知道公平信用报告法 (FCRA) 几乎适用于所有背景调查报告，而不仅仅是信用报告。

确实，中小企业的重要性怎么强调都不为过。中小企业通过以下方式发挥重要作用：

• 与高层领导合作，确定企业的特定需求（例如，满足监管要求、合同规定或客户要求进行背景调查）；

• 与高级领导和安全人员合作，识别业务关键领域的风险（例如，员工被委以敏感职责或敏感信息的职位——如专有信息、社会安全号码和信用卡号码）；

• 与人力资源部、招聘人员和 IT 部门合作，将背景调查顺利而明智地整合到招聘流程中（例如，将劳动力筛选流程与录取通知书、就业申请和 HRIS 系统进行协调）；

• 对背景调查独有的招聘流程方面的“所有权”（例如，关于信用和犯罪历史信息使用的特定联邦、州和地方法律）；

• 与采购部门合作，与能够满足公司特定需求的背景调查提供商达成协议（例如，及时提供具有最先进和安全技术的背景调查报告，为公司做出招聘决定，为公司邮寄“不利行动”信函等）；和

• 作为背景调查提供者与公司之间的联络人（例如，审查有关新法规的警报以及向管理团队提出合规问题）。

在我们看来，太多的公司犯了错误，将其劳动力筛选计划的责任委托给没有足够带宽或经验的工人，无法成为有效的中小企业。劳动力筛选计划是每家公司更广泛的风险管理战略不可或缺的组成部分。

信誉良好的背景调查提供商（例如 观火背调）将提供许多与合规性相关的资源，包括模板文件、最佳实践建议和有关即将发生的立法发展的法律警报。但是，最终，公司中的某个人必须指导企业做出有关如何防范组织特有的风险的决策。寻找或提名真正的中小企业将有助于就公司的选择做出明智和有意义的决策。

案例研究：
在最近的一项联邦巡回法院裁决中，原告声称雇主的基于定罪的筛查政策对少数族裔产生了非法的“不同影响”，法院绝对让雇主的证人承担责任，因为他们甚至无法回答基本的问题。关于政策的问题。El诉宾夕法尼亚州东南部Transp。权威 (SEPTA)，479 F.3d 232，（3rd Cir. 2007）。法院指出：

在回应 [原告] El 的询问时，[被告] SEPTA 指定了 11 名员工和前员工，他们可以说明 SEPTA 政策的业务必要性。在这 11 人中，艾尔废黜了其中的 8 人。. . . 通读这些证词，令人惊讶的是，除了对乘客安全的普遍关注之外，SEPTA 指定的证人中没有一个人能够解释为什么从无数的可能性中选择了这项特定政策。即使是该政策的起草者文森特·沃尔什 (Vincent Walsh) 也无法深入了解该政策是如何编写的，它基于什么研究或信息，或者它为何如此结构化。

鉴于 SEPTA 声称其适用的政策对犯罪进行了区分，将某些犯罪分开，终身禁止 SEPTA 就业，并对其他犯罪实施七年禁令，因此这种无能尤其引人注目。如果该政策的制定接近 [美国最高法院判决] 似乎考虑的谨慎程度，那么我们希望 SEPTA 的某个人能够解释它如何决定将哪些罪行归入每个类别，七种罪行如何- 年数被选中，以及为什么 SEPTA 认为终身禁令适用于简单的攻击等犯罪。

几乎所有 El 与该政策相关的问题都遭到 SEPTA 人员的沉默，这表明 SEPTA 没有真正的依据来断言其政策准确区分了存在和不存在不可接受风险水平的申请人。

employment screening program requires a certain amount of specialized knowledge. Thus, companies are increasingly recognizing the importance of finding or nominating a subject matter expert (SME) – someone who knows that the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) applies to virtually all background check reports, not just credit reports.

Truly, the importance of the SME cannot be overstated. The SME plays a valuable role by:

•working with senior leadership to identify specific needs the business has (for example, satisfying regulatory requirements, contractual stipulations or customer-mandates for background checks);

•working with senior leadership and security personnel to identify risks to key areas of the business (for example, positions where employees are entrusted with sensitive responsibilities or sensitive information – such as proprietary information, Social Security numbers and credit card numbers);

•partnering with Human Resources, recruiters and the IT department to smoothly and sensibly integrate background checks into the hiring process (for example, coordinating the workforce screening process with offer letters, employment applications and HRIS systems);

•taking “ownership” of aspects of the hiring process that are unique to background checks (for example, specific federal, state and local laws regarding the use of credit and criminal history information);

•partnering with the procurement department to enter into an agreement with a background check provider that can meet the specific needs of the company (for example, providing timely background check reports with state of the art and secure technology, adjudicating hiring decisions for the company, mailing out “adverse action” letters for the company, etc.); and

•serving as the liaison between the background check provider and the company (for example, reviewing alerts about new regulations and raising compliance issues with the management team).

In our opinion, too many companies make the mistake of delegating responsibility over their workforce screening program to workers without enough bandwidth or experience to serve as effective SMEs. A workforce screening program is an indispensable component of every company’s broader risk-management strategy.

Reputable background check providers (such as HireRight) will offer many compliance-related resources, including template documents, best practice recommendations and legal alerts about impending legislative developments. Ultimately, though, someone at the company must guide decisions by the business about how it wants to safeguard against the risks that are particular to the organization. Finding or nominating a bona fide SME will facilitate informed and meaningful decision making about the company’s options.

Case Study:
In one recent federal Circuit Court decision involving a claim by the plaintiff that the employer’s conviction-based screening policy had an illegal “disparate impact” on minorities, the court absolutely took the employer’s witnesses to task for their inability to answer even basic questions about the policy. El v. Southeastern Pennsylvania Transp. Authority (SEPTA), 479 F.3d 232, (3rd Cir. 2007). The court stated:

In response to [the plaintiff] El’s interrogatories, [the defendant] SEPTA named 11 employees and former employees that could speak to the business necessity of SEPTA’s policy. Of those 11, El deposed eight of them. . . . Reading through those depositions, it is striking that not one of the witnesses that SEPTA named was able to explain-beyond a general concern for passenger safety—why this particular policy was chosen from among myriad possibilities. Even Vincent Walsh, the drafter of the policy, could provide little insight into how the policy was written, on what research or information it was based, or why it was structured as it was.

This inability is particularly striking given that the policy SEPTA claims it applied makes distinctions among crimes, setting apart some crimes for a life-time ban from SEPTA employment and applying a seven-year ban to others. If the policy were developed with anything approaching the level of care that [U.S. Supreme Court decisions] seem to contemplate, then we would expect that someone at SEPTA would be able to explain how it decided which crimes to place into each category, how the seven-year number was selected, and why SEPTA thought a lifetime ban was appropriate for a crime like simple assault.

Almost all of El’s relevant questions about the policy were met with silence from SEPTA personnel, suggesting the reasonable inference that SEPTA has no real basis for asserting that its policy accurately distinguishes between applicants that do and do not present an unacceptable level of risk.