Background checks for employees

California, I work for a small non-profit organization and we want to start a policy that requires all new and current employees to submit to background checks. We did not do any formal background checks on any of the current employees, but since we are starting to grow we would like to do the background checks on all our current employees and any new hires. May we require that all the current employees (all have been employed over 1 year) allow us to do background checks on them now?
Also, in our hand book it says we reserve the right to do background checks and the employees sign it.

"Background checks" can mean anything from simply calling previous employers, to a full-blown security clearance at the Federal level. What do you mean by background check? Would you do it yourselves or would you hire a third party agency to do it? And what value do you think it would add to do these on current employees?

When you have answered these questions, it will be easier to answer yours.

We want to do criminal background checks to make sure no one has been convicted of a felony, specifically a violent crime. It is the Executive Director who is pushing for the checks and wants to be sure everyone has a "clean" record. We would be using a program called LIVE SCAN, but the employees have to go to another agency to have this done.

Okay. It is legal for you to conduct criminal record checks on applicants and current employees, BUT before you can conduct the check on any individual, employee or applicant, you must have a signed agreement from that applicant or individual giving you permission. The agreement in your handbook is almost certainly NOT sufficient - this agreement must conform to certain specifications. You may refuse to hire someone who does not agree to the check - I'm going to have to check whether or not you can fire someone already employed for refusing. Also, you are going to need to check your state laws to find out if you can fire someone if you find that they do have any kind of felony - some states prohibit you from firing someone SOLELY on the basis of the fact that they have a criminal record.

Look up FCRA on your favorite search engine, and it probably wouldn't hurt to run the whole thing by your corporate attorney.

Thank You very much for your reply cbg!