Building a Strong Workforce: How TAL Building Centers Hires with Checkr

TAL Building Centers is one of the fastest growing family-owned building material centers in the Pacific Northwest. TAL prioritizes customer satisfaction and strives to build lasting relationships with its customers. They hire for everything from labor-focused roles in the yard to leadership positions, and all of those roles are key to their success.

When TAL began searching for a new background check vendor, they sought a partner offering automation, a user-friendly tool for their HR team and candidates, and a technologically advanced, robust solution. Through their partnership with their HRIS vendor, Paylocity, they discovered Checkr.

While rolling out updates to their onboarding system, TAL initiated a conversation with Checkr, as recommended by Paylocity. Checkr met their requirements for background checks and motor vehicle record (MVR) checks, as well as their requirements for visibility into candidates’ background check status.

Erin Doehring, Human Resources Director at TAL, chose to partner with Checkr because of its integration with Paylocity and the automation it offered. Erin quickly noticed the benefits of using Checkr, including improved visibility for HR admins to track the progress of background checks and increased transparency for candidates, who could now see how long their background checks were expected to take.

In addition to criminal background checks, TAL uses Checkr for Motor Vehicle Record (MVR) checks for their fleet. They hire individuals who drive both restricted non CDL and CDL trucks, so it’s important when that employee is out on the road, they’re driving safely. Erin also uses the Checkr Assess tool to stay compliant, which allows them to set up criteria in advance. “Upon receiving the results of the background check, Checkr informs us of any potential red flags based on our adjudication matrix. We then have the option to review the candidate and potentially hire them, or if a red flag is present, Checkr will inform us that the candidate does not meet our adjudication matrix. Alternatively, if the candidate has a clean record and is suitable for employment, Checkr will give us the green light to proceed,” Erin explained.

Before Checkr, TAL was managing their adjudication matrix via a spreadsheet, which was extremely manual and didn’t provide the consistency they were looking for. Also, if they unfortunately had to pursue adverse action, they didn’t have a great system in place to be able to do so in a compliant and streamlined fashion. Checkr has solved that for them with Assess.

Before using Checkr, TAL used a different vendor to manage their MVR checks for both non-DOT and DOT requirements. This process was highly time-consuming and ineffective, as it relied heavily on paper-based methods and could take up to two weeks to complete a check. As a result, they occasionally lost potential candidates due to the lengthy process. Additionally, it was difficult to ensure compliance and keep track of all the necessary paperwork for completing MVR checks. By switching to Checkr they’ve saved a tremendous amount of time, “It can take a matter of minutes to complete a MVR with Checkr versus the two weeks that it took on average previously with our old partnership,” noted Erin. 

Checkr also helps Erin and her team stay up to date with knowledge and information about FMCSA standards and regulations. “Checkr took the initiative to understand the vehicles we drive and our drivers' expectations. After listening to us, they were able to provide us with helpful guidance, such as identifying a gap in our pre-employment DOT employment verification,” said Erin, “As a result, we were able to implement those employment verifications using Checkr. This ensures compliance moving forward with our Driver Qualification files, and we can be confident that we are in good shape with DOT and FMCSA regulations.”