Staffing & trust · updated August 2026
How to Verify Your Cleaning Company Screens Its Staff
The building does not background-check your night cleaners. Your vendor does, or nobody does. Tenant handbooks typically require a named worker roster and badge display — not screening. So the entire control sits with the contractor, which means you have to ask for it specifically and know what a compliant programme looks like.
What a Rigorous Programme Contains
- Social security trace to establish identity and address history
- County criminal search in every county of residence for seven years
- Statewide and federal criminal database searches
- National sex offender registry
- OFAC and sanctions screening
- Employment verification
- Form I-9 and work authorisation
- Re-screening on a defined cadence — annual or biennial. Almost nobody does this, and it is the question that separates a real programme from a hiring formality.
The Legal Guardrails, and the Red Flag They Reveal
New York City's Fair Chance Act means criminal history may not be enquired into before a conditional offer of employment. After a conditional offer, the employer must run the New York Correction Law Article 23-A factor analysis, provide a written Fair Chance Notice with the analysis and the report, and hold the position open for the applicant to respond. It applies to employers with four or more employees. The federal FCRA adds disclosure, authorisation, and pre-adverse and adverse action notice requirements.
A vendor who proudly says “we reject anyone with a record” is describing a programme that is unlawful in New York City. It is a genuinely useful signal — it tells you they either do not run a real programme or do not understand the one they run. A compliant vendor will describe an individualised assessment, not a blanket rule.
What to Ask For
- Which consumer reporting agency do you use?
- Provide your written screening policy.
- Provide a redacted sample adverse-action file.
- Are subcontractors screened to the same standard, and how do you evidence it?
- Does the roster submitted to building security match the screened roster exactly?
- What is your re-screening cadence?
Sector Overlays
Medical suites carry HIPAA workforce training requirements. Financial tenants in the Financial District and Midtown East frequently apply their own vendor risk screening on top of the building's. Government sites may require clearances. Build the lead time into your start date — these reviews run longer than a managing agent's.
Last reviewed August 2026. Figures for prevailing wage and regulatory schedules change on 1 January and 1 July — we re-verify this page each cycle.
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