ANAHEIM HILLS, Calif., Oct. 23 (UPI) -- Most U.S. company human resources officials believe criminal-history questions are handled appropriately but likely they are not, a private survey indicated.
The survey conducted by consulting firm PeopleG2 found that 94 percent of the executives said their firms are in compliance with 2012 Equal Employment Opportunity Commission guidelines on how to handle the question of a job candidate's criminal background.
"However, 72 percent of those surveyed ask job applicants about criminal history in applications despite 2012 EEOC guidelines designed to reverse the procedure," PeopleG2 said.
"Most companies are still unaware that questions about criminal history on job applications can be discriminatory and that communication about criminal history should arise as an open dialog much later in the decision-making stage of hiring," said Chris Dyer, PeopleG2's founder and chief executive officer.
PeopleG2 surveyed 1,493 human resource executives in September and found 72 percent indicated their company does criminal background checks when hiring. Eighty percent indicated they believed the EEOC guidelines were fair to the job candidate and 63 percent indicated they believed the EEOC guidelines were fair to the employer, PeopleG2 said.
PeopleG2 did not release a margin of error for its findings. The survey, done in September, involved only human resource executives at firms with 25,000 employees or more, PeopleG2 said.
