Credit information is utilized for different purposes by different employers to make different kinds of decisions about employment. At a time when many Americans have lost their jobs or faced financial crises because of financial sector meltdowns, on the surface it appears fundamentally unfair to some people to let an employer keep from hiring somebody because they have bad credit. Maybe there are some employers who have that simplistic a viewpoint on hiring as to simply exclude prospective employees with bad credit, but if they exist, I don’t know any. Most employers who are that fickle don’t actually bother to do anything to vet employees because they think that their seat of the pants impression from an interview is better than using objective criteria, so they don’t pay for a background check. That approach is frequently penny-wise and pound foolish, because most people very erroneously believe that they can accurately detect deception during an interview.
My clients who make employment related decisions based upon credit are concerned with two issues that emerge from credit reports: potential for fraud, embezzlement, or other thefts and lack of impulse control. It takes experience and training to understand how to read between the lines and the employers I deal with take the process of vetting employees very seriously. They don’t use credit reports as the sole basis for making employment decision and they ask for expert advice when needed.
Without belaboring issues involving the potential for employee pilferage, assessing a potential hire for impulse control is extremely important when one considers that all companies have an obligation to have a discrimination and harassment free working environment. When people lack impulse control, they do not compartmentalize their behavior so that some behaviors are controlled and other behaviors not controlled. They either have impulse control or they don’t within a spectrum or having more or less, but either way, it’s usually across the board.
So, if somebody has a financial history that wreaks of impulse buying, in which they utilize credit irresponsibly to purchase stuff on whims that they don’t really need, eventually digging their way into a financial black hole, they are also likely to engage in behaviors in the workplace that are aberrant and offensive. People who can’t refrain from sexual or racial harassment rather than just harboring bigoted thinking that they don’t act on have poor or no impulse control.
If AB 22 passes as presently written, it will deprive employers of a useful tool to detect signs of poor impulse control and thereby make it all that much more difficult to keep the workplace free from discrimination and harassment.
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