Background Screening Program:
As announced in the November 2017 Operations Manual Release [1], after re-evaluating our background screening requirements for safety, quality, and security, we have established strategic partnerships with four background screening vendors to provide Mathnasium franchises background screenings that meet the industry’s best practices with significant discounts in price.
All franchisees must be registered with an approved background screening vendor by 01/31/2018. Any new hires after 01/31/2018 will be required to have a background check completed by one of the following approved vendors:
 [2] |
 [3] |
 [4] |
 [5] |
These vendors have been vetted and tested before being selected to ensure all proper databases are being searched for all new hires. See below for transition details.
What to do next:
If you are not currently using one of these vendors for your background checks, you will need to register with an approved vendor by 01/31/2018 to stay in compliance. You will not be required to re-run background screenings on currently employed staff or newly hired staffed who have already been screened before 01/31/2018.
If you are already registered with one of the approved vendors, no change will be needed, but you must use the new Mathnasium package at a minimum going forward. Please confirm that your account has been properly transitioned to the new Mathnasium package and price. If your account has not been transitioned to the new package and price, please reach out to your vendor’s Dedicated Customer Support Executive; you can find their contact information and more in the Background Screening Vendor Guide on Radius [6].
Why we are making this change:
Allowing franchisees to select any vendor and run background screenings has proven ineffective, and in some cases led to employees not being sufficiently screened. Background check providers often use confusing language and don’t follow a single standard in their labels for screening services, which makes it challenging to independently identify the correct databases to search, the level of validation required to authenticate a search, and evaluating price against the quality of a background screening. For example, vendors might offer and run generic screening at a very low price that does not sufficiently validate searches at the county level. This type of screening may appear to meet our requirements, but leaves holes when identifying possible criminal history of a candidate.
As a result, we concluded that background check screening must be ordered exclusively from required vendors with specific minimum packages used for all employees. Our center employees work directly with children and must have a comprehensive criminal background check. This change also eliminates the time and challenge required for franchisees to select background screening, while reducing screening costs.
Approved Vendor Partners:
We have decided to partner with Sterling Solutions [2], IntelliCorp [3], Universal [4], and Checkr [5] after our vetting and testing. We evaluated vendors across multiple criteria, including franchisee feedback, experience working with franchised organizations, experience working with organizations who work with children, the level of service automation, reporting capabilities, national accreditation, and customer service. We considered vendors that franchisees reported via survey as well as industry leaders, including ADP, US Info Search, HireRight, Verified Credentials, Safeguard, and others. However, these other providers did not meet our criteria for approval for one or more of the following reasons:
- The inability to partner, report, or scale nationally with our size network
- Poor customer service, reviews, or franchisee feedback
- A lack of a comprehensive screening package meeting our requirements
- Poor technology, client portals, or process automation for ease of use and reliable turnaround time
- Price
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