In hospitality, it can sometimes feel like employees turn over as fast as guests. Hotels, restaurants, resorts, and event facilities need a 24/7 staff presence, and the jobs can be physically demanding. Add in big seasonal fluctuations, and you have a recipe for high turnover.
Yet your employees are the face of your business. They have direct interactions with guests and access to their rooms or payment information. That means you need to hire people who are both personable and trustworthy, even if they may only be with you a short time.
A fast, accurate background check can help you hire people you can trust. Here’s our guide to hospitality industry background checks and applying them to your hiring process.
Why Background Checks Matter in Hospitality
Hotel employees often have unsupervised access to guests, guest rooms, luggage, and valuables. They can see guests’ contact information and payment information. They also have access to food and drinks, including alcoholic beverages.
That kind of access means employers have a duty of care. You must perform due diligence on each hire and take reasonable steps to ensure you’re hiring trustworthy individuals.
A single hiring misstep can lead to reputational damage and liability exposure. Hospitality background check services help identify potential risks before they become incidents.
Key Challenges of Hiring in the Hospitality Industry
Hiring great people is a challenge in many businesses. But key aspects of the hotel and hospitality world make it particularly difficult.
- High turnover and seasonal hiring surges: Demand changes with the seasons. Staff sizes constantly fluctuate, contributing to short tenures and high turnover rates.
- Large percentage of part-time and gig workers: Students looking for summer jobs, people working multiple gigs for extra cash — the hospitality workforce relies on non-traditional employment.
- Diverse workforce with varying documentation needs: Immigrants make up a sizable portion of the hospitality workforce. Employers and workers must deal with evolving immigration rules and policies.
- Pressure to fill roles quickly without cutting compliance corners: Employers want to fill roles as soon as possible to avoid disappointing guests with long wait times or poor service. But compliance takes time.
What Should a Hospitality Industry Background Check Include?
Hospitality worker background check services should be in-depth and efficient. These screenings can look at a candidate’s history from many different angles:
- Criminal history search: This is conducted at county, state, and federal levels. Review the candidate’s offenses and when they occurred. Ongoing criminal monitoring to be alerted to arrests and charges as they happen is also helpful.
- Sex offender registry check: Given the access hotel employees have to guest rooms and personal information, checking state and federal databases for records of sexual offenses is an important step.
- Identity/SSN verification: These checks help ensure the applicant is who they claim to be. The goal is to reduce fraud and establish an accurate basis for criminal and employment screenings.
- Employment history verification: This screening contacts employers to check an applicant’s work history. Verify where they worked, why they left, and whether they’re eligible for rehire.
- Drug screening: Drug testing requirements vary by company, role, and state. It’s commonly done because drug use by hotel employees can endanger guests and bring unwanted risk to the business.
- Reference checks: Contact professional and personal references to gather information about the candidate’s work habits, management style, character traits, and more. These are particularly helpful for supervisory and management roles.
- Credit checks: For a position that handles money or accesses financial information, it’s important that the person you’re considering has good credit. This potentially means they have less incentive to commit fraud or other financial crimes.
Compliance Considerations for Hospitality Employers
Hospitality industry background checks must comply with all applicable federal and state laws, just like any other industry.
- FCRA requirements: The Fair Credit Reporting Act sets out employers’ obligations during the screening process. It includes disclosures and authorizations needed to run checks. It also covers guidelines for taking adverse action and rejecting a candidate. Learn more about FCRA-compliant background checks.
- Ban-the-box and fair chance hiring laws: States and cities regulate when a criminal history check can be performed and how many years the check includes.
- EEOC guidance: The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission requires employers to create an objective process for determining when to disqualify an applicant based on their criminal history. Such a decision can be made if the exclusion “is job-related and consistent with business necessity.”
- State-specific restrictions: Background check rules vary by state, making it challenging for employers to comply. Consult your legal counsel for guidance on how to handle these differences. A third-party screening service, like Cisive, can also ensure that checks follow the different state regulations.
Background Checks by Hospitality Role
You may want to tailor your hospitality industry background checks to the types of hospitality roles being hired, since different roles require tailored screening based on their specific responsibilities:
- Front desk and guest-facing roles: These hospitality employees have access to room keys and personal guest information, and they often work in roles requiring direct interaction with guests, which raises trust and safety expectations. Consider running identity, criminal history, and sex offender registry checks.
- Concierge services: Because these staff handle guest interaction and sensitive requests, screening should emphasize trustworthiness and sound judgment.
- Valet services: If the role includes driving, add driver screening and verify license status to support guest safety and compliance.
- Food and beverage staff: Run criminal history checks and drug screenings to ensure you’re hiring people who won’t jeopardize guest safety and to reduce risks tied to drug abuse in safety-sensitive service work.
- Housekeeping: Hotel background checks for housekeeping staff typically include identity verification and criminal history checks to help protect guests’ personal property. These hires often include an immigration component, making it crucial to know who you’re hiring.
- Maintenance staff: Because they may enter guest rooms and secured areas, focus on criminal history and screening measures that support property security and reliability.
- Management/supervisory roles: A full background screening, including employment verification, education verification, and credit history, can help ensure that you’re hiring qualified, trustworthy managers and supervisors.
- Security staff: Security staff have access to sensitive information and situations. Perform reference checks to ensure they have a history of trustworthiness and reliability. Run enhanced criminal background checks to uncover crimes like fraud, weapons offenses, or other signs of poor behavior.
How To Build a Consistent Hospitality Screening Program
A consistent, repeatable hospitality industry background check program is required to keep up with hiring needs, especially because many hospitality roles are guest-facing.
- Define screening requirements by role type. Use our list above to get started, and remember that different roles may need different screening packages for new hires.
- Choose a compliant background check partner. There are many companies, like Cisive, that support compliant employment screening and employment background checks for employers.
- Build disclosure and authorization into your onboarding flow. Getting this information up front saves time and headaches.
- Establish adjudication criteria in advance. This way, hiring managers can make informed decisions using relevant information from reports when questions arise.
- Train the HR team and hiring managers on FCRA and adverse action procedures.
- Review your program annually for legal and regulatory updates. Plan for the reviews, and make adjustments to the process as needed.
Frequently Asked Questions About Hospitality Background Checks
Let’s briefly answer some of our most-asked questions from HR and hiring managers in hospitality.
Do Hospitality Employers Need To Run Background Checks?
Background checks are not required by federal law for hospitality jobs, but some states do require them. They're also widely considered a best practice; the liabilities are too great to risk hiring unscreened people.
How Long Does a Hospitality Background Check Take?
Background check companies in hospitality, like Cisive, complete standard background checks in 3 business days or less, so turnaround time is a key consideration in hospitality hiring. Automated data retrieval can reduce compliance errors in background checks. As one example of fast processing, 89% of criminal checks complete within one hour. In addition, 87% of hospitality customers report faster turnaround times with Checkr. More time is usually required for full employment verification.
Can You Hire Someone With a Criminal Record in Hospitality?
Criminal records don’t automatically disqualify a candidate, and hiring decisions about candidates with records must be job-related and individualized. The EEOC requires that you conduct an individual assessment and review the relevant information in the report before deciding. Does the past violation relate to any job functions? How serious was the criminal act, and how long ago did it take place? If you answer questions like these and still want to hire the person, you can. Poor screening practices can also increase negligent hiring risk if someone is placed in the wrong role.
What Background Check Company Is Best for Hospitality?
Given the near-constant hiring needed, most hotels, from boutique hotels to hotel chains, need a partner in hospitality industry background checks known for fast turnaround times, consistently high accuracy, ongoing compliance support, and cost effective scaling for high-volume hiring. You also need a service that helps employers feel confident in hiring decisions and can integrate with your ATS. Find out why Cisive may be the right choice by speaking with our experts.
