Of late a new breed of terrorists have come to light. These terrorists lead a dual life. They are part of a skilled labor force during the day and spend their nights planning their next terror strike. The point in case are Danish Riyaz, who was arrested by the police for the July 13 Mumbai blast and Mansoor Peerbhoy, suspected to have a hand in another Mumbai blast case. Both the suspects had been working in IT firms in Hyderabad and Pune. As usual the companies involved claim to have done the necessary background checks along with police verifications and the police blame the companies for not being proactive and relying entirely on the police for candidate verification.
I think that rather than playing the blame game it is more critical to understand who is ultimately at loss? My take would be the company that unknowingly harbored the criminal. Take into consideration a scenario wherein you get up in the morning, and pick up the paper to read that the person that sits next to you in the office was involved in a bomb blast – what would be your reaction? After the initial surge of disbelief and fear, your anger would be directed towards the company for not being able to provide you with a safe work environment. Your experience would then be moving via word-of-mouth and before you know it more than half of the employees would want to exist the company ASAP.
Come to think of it – demanding the background check of a colleague should be an inherent right of a company’s employees. We spend most of our adult lives at work and our colleagues are the best indicators of our mood and personality change. Though a little farfetched I think that allowing a colleague to request a post employment background check on another co-worker may help uncover aspects that may have been overlooked in the past background checks.
For all aspects of professional success it’s important to have a good harmony between the company and its employees. Then why should creation of a safe work environment and the employee and company harmony in achieving it be another issue? Think about it, it’s the duty of the company to ensure that the right people join the company. Similarly it should be the obligation of the employee to ensure that the work place remains safe and to bring to the notice of HR managers any co-worker activity than may be deemed dangerous to the work environment.
This interdependence between the employee and the company would help create a criminal free work place and would work in the advantage of the both the parties involved.
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