What is Negligent Hiring?

Whether you are looking to start a business, hire your first worker, or simply expand the
operations of your current HR department, you need to understand the concept of negligent
hiring. Knowledge of the threat of negligent hiring will not only improve your entire employee
screening policy, but also drive your business to directly defend against circumstances that
might result in lawsuits or scandals at your company.

The Definition

First of all, let’s try to understand negligent hiring by looking just at the definition itself.
“Negligent hiring” is a type of legal claim that can be made by a customer or worker who
is somehow hurt or “damaged” by an employee in your hire. In most cases like this, the
employee in question commits some sort of crime on company time. Some examples
include assaulting a customer or stealing from a co-worker.

Negligent hiring claims are made when there is some piece of history in the offending
employee’s past that could have predicted the offense in question. For example, a
negligent hiring claim could be made if the worker who assaulted a customer had a
history of criminal violence.

The implication of a negligent hiring claim is that the employer either knew or could
have known about the employee’s history but did not take proper strides to consider that
history while making hiring decisions. In other words, a negligent hiring claim asserts
that an employer could have predicted and prevented dangerous situations by being
cognizant of a worker’s red flags but neglected to do so.

What Negligent Hiring Means for You

In most cases, negligent hiring claims emerge because of one or two oversights. Either
the employer neglected to do background checks and did not know about a worker’s
criminal history, or the employer did run the checks and simply failed to realize that a
worker posed threats to both colleagues and customers.

By looking at negligent hiring in those terms, it’s fairly clear to see what the concept
means for you and for most other employers like you. The message here is that when it
comes to making hiring decisions, you need to do thorough background checks and
take those background checks into account when making hiring decisions.