Most positions are classified as low risk and require only a “national agency check with inquiries,” the minimum required. Image: image_vulture/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffThe IG’s office at the Postal Service has credited the agency for carrying out recommendations of a 2019 report to improve suitability screening before hiring applicants.
While the level of scrutiny varies with the job’s responsibilities, it said, most positions are classified as low risk and require only a “national agency check with inquiries,” the minimum required. That consists of searches from several federal agencies’ investigations databases plus checks such as employment activity for the past five years, local criminal convictions, education, and residences.
The report said that starting in 2020 USPS made improvements including initiating those investigations for all applicants prior to hiring them, integrating that process into other internal personnel tracking systems, and issuing policy reiterating employee hiring suitability requirements.
Those changes were “effective,” it said, noting that in a sample of 215 employees hired in 2021 and 2022 it found the required screenings had been completed for all but one. However, it also found that about four-tenths of those had not been fully recorded in internal personnel systems and recommended that be done; management agreed.
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