Southern Company

What is involved in a background screening for Southern Company?

Background Review: Criminal history, social security number verification, Global Watch and driver’s license report. In addition, discretionary searches for employment, education and specialized professional certification of licenses can also be ordered.

Drug Screen: Standard 7 Panel Drug Screen: Renewals and screens for post-accident, reasonable cause and random programs can also be ordered on through the portal.

For complete information, download the Southern Company Drug/Alcohol Screening & Background Investigation Criteria form from our website.

Do I have to use the providers listed in the toolkit or can I use another?

You must use one of the providers listed in the toolkit. These providers have had long standing relationships with Southern Company and have been provided the specific directives and criteria required by Southern Company. The providers also have been given access to our “employee dashboard” to enter your employee’s compliance status once the screens are complete. The employee dashboard is the exclusive tool used by Southern Company to determine your employee’s compliance status and to grant your employee the access they need to perform the contracted work.

My employee was recently screened under our company’s own background and drug screen program. Can we use those screens for Southern Company compliance?

No, your employee must undergo the screens using our providers and our process.

My employee was previously screened under Southern Company. However, they completed the assignment and were assigned elsewhere. Does the employee need to have their screens renewed to return to a SCS assignment?

If your employee is returning to Southern Company, has had a break in Southern Company service exceeding 30 days and their previously completed screens are older than 12 months, both a background and drug screen renewal is required.

What do I need to focus on when working in the toolkit?

· Verify you are using the most recent version of the toolkit. This can be verified by the notation, “Revised August 2017” along the bottom of each page in the toolkit.

· Section one of the Service Request form must to be completed by the Southern Company Project Manager and Section two should be completed by the person at your company who should receive the compliance results.

· All fields on the forms should be completed.

· No one other than your employee should complete the consent form. Do not complete the consent form on behalf of your employee.

· Ensure your employee has answered the criminal conviction question on the consent form correctly. The form asks if they have EVER been convicted of a crime. Since one of the disqualification criteria is falsification or omission, this is a critical step. The presence of criminal history is not necessarily a disqualifier, but omission or falsification can be.

What should I expect when opening an account with the screening provider?

Once you have selected a provider from the list in the toolkit, the provider will forward you a service agreement for signature. Payment is required by credit card each time a screening request is made. The provider may ask your employee to complete additional consent forms and will provide your employee with information regarding their right to file a dispute if any information on the background report is incorrect.

What is the expectation for my employee completing the drug screen process?

The drug screen must be scheduled through the provider. Do not independently send your employee to the local Lab Corp clinic. The provider will schedule your employee at a drug screen clinic in their network and the location based on their home or work zip code (which may very well be the local Lab Corp clinic). The provider will forward you or your employee important facts about the drug screen and which include the location of the clinic and hours of operation. Your employee must complete the drug screen process within 48 hours of contact from the provider. If your employee misses this deadline, additional or alternate screening may be required.

What happens after I’ve submitted the required forms (service request form and consent form) to the background/drug screen provider?

The goal is to complete the background process within 72 hours. However, there are times this is not possible. Several explanations include:

· Jurisdiction requires a clerk assisted search rather than an automatedsearch.

· In some cases, physical documents must be obtained. In some states, this is by written request only.

· A criminal “hit” is identified in the search, however there is no information regarding the final disposition.

· A criminal conviction is identified, however, since the employee did not list it on their consent form, additional research must be conducted to verify its validity.

· The background investigative report may need to go through a quality review process to determine if additional searches or requests for additional information are needed.

What happens once the screens are complete?

Once the screens are complete, the provider will review the results and assign a compliant or non-compliant status in accordance with Southern Company’s criteria. The compliance result will be loaded into the Southern Company employee database and compliance notifications will be emailed to the Southern Company project manager and the contractor/supplier contact listed on the Service Request form.

The provider quoted me a price at the onset of the screens; however, once the screens were complete, there was an additional cost. Why?

The price quoted for the background is based on a criminal history search using the last name of your employee and their residential jurisdiction (state/county). During the background process, a scan is conducted using court records, credit reporting agencies and other entities to determine if your employee has used (or been wrongly assigned) alternate last names or nicknames or if they have lived or worked in jurisdictions other than the address disclosed on your employee’s consent form. Using any additional information developed, the background investigation is conducted, searching criminal history under all the name variations and additional state/county jurisdictions that were identified. Consequently, court costs increase with each variation that must be searched and the provider must pass that cost on to you.