Cindy’s Other Blog

With 60 % of all new businesses failing to make it past the first year, everybody knows that risk taking is an integral part of running a business. Taking steps to ensure that such risks are measured takes an even greater importance when considering that if 1 an every 4 businesses fail in the first year, the figure reaches court records proportions over the course of 5 years when it becomes 3 out of 5!

When such risks are assessed, it is common to assume that external market forces are influential in the development of any business, and attempts at forecasting such forces should indeed be on the agenda of any business owner as these external factors do play an important part in the risk taking process. What is often times summarily brushed to the side are the internal risks though, factors that do not dependent on outside circumstances but rather on internal structure or even actions from within the company itself.

Not only do businesses have to have things right when it comes to their assessment and consideration of risks emanating from outside forces, but often times little consideration is given to the fact that workers or employees may be a risk themselves if for example they drive cars for the company or operator heavy equipment or machinery.

And it is not just in-situ that these types of risk can take place. Any business that has an interactive relationship between its employees and its customers runs a risk when an employee’s mistake takes place. For example, a company that sends employees to the home of its customers sees these risks extended outside of its walls and it is not just the risks that are compounded but the actual nature of said risks!

When mistakes happen, not only can liability insurance premium be raised, but so does the probability that the company may find it increasingly difficult to stay in business also increase.

In other words, one employee’s actions can have damaging consequences for the company in terms of reputation and eventual cost of a litigation process.

Of course, mistakes do happen and steps can and indeed must be taken to try and make sure they do not happen in the first place.

It is therefore of vital importance that appropriate pre-screening at the recruiting level be taken in order to ensure that if a mistake does happen, it is not from someone with a history of making such mistakes or worse, someone with court records indicating a criminal past.

We live in a society which takes the liberty and privacy of all citizens very seriously and thus the notion of court records sometimes has disturbing effects on those who are confronted with the task of recruiting a potential employee.

And as we live in litigation’s world where large sums of money are rendered in compensation by courts all over the nation, the responsibility of a business owner lies not with the need to preserve the privacy of potential employees but rather with the absolute necessity to discover every thing there is, before it is too late!

Business owners who might have shown reluctance in searching court records when recruiting may then find themselves in the very uncomfortable situation of having to explain to the other employees who may have lost their job why they did not act with more care before recruiting the worker responsible for their plight.