New Year Resolutions for North Carolina Staffing Firms (A Legal Perspective)

Like most of us, recruiting and staffing firms prioritize their New Year resolutions to ensure a prosperous and successful year. Here are a couple of legal compliance issues to keep in mind when considering your “resolutions” as you kick-off the New Year:

E-Verify

As you are aware by now, North Carolina law requires some private employers to use the federal E-Verify program to verify the work authorization of all new hires. As of January 1, 2013, private businesses with more than 100 employees are required to enroll in the Internet-based E-Verify system.

The E-Verify program is operated by the Department of Homeland Security in partnership with the Social Security Administration. It verifies a new hire’s work eligibility by comparing the employee’s I9 Form information with the Social Security Administration’s database. It is free, and it has been designed to be user-friendly for employers.

The final phase of the NC E-Verify law goes into effect on July 1, 2013 and requires private business with more than 25 employees to enroll in the E-Verify system. North Carolina businesses should be aware of the E-Verify requirements including recordkeeping requirements for storing and retaining E-Verify results and the I9 Form.

Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA)

Beginning January 1, 2013, businesses, including staffing firms, must begin using new FCRA forms to notify applicants and employees of their legal rights. FCRA sets forth the procedural requirements that employers must adhere to when conducting background checks through Consumer Reporting Agencies. A Consumer Reporting Agency (“CRA”) is any third party that handles your background checks for new hires.

While there are no substantive changes to the FCRA forms (which consist of the consent form for obtaining a background check, preadverse decision notification, and adverse action notification), the forms must be updated to reflect that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has taken over enforcement of FCRA (which was previously handled by the Federal Trade Commission).

Conclusion

While a legal forecast for 2013 cannot be fully addressed in this article, we will touch upon some of the 2013 legal trends facing employers at the NCASP Annual Spring Conference (April 25-27, 2013).

The new E-Verify and FCRA requirements went into effect on January 1, 2013. Accordingly, all North Carolina employers should be prepared to comply with these changes immediately.

This article first appeared in the Jan./Feb 2013 issue of Staffing Now, the North Carolina Association of Staffing Professionals (NCASP) Ezine.