I was driving in my car Friday evening, listening to news on NPR and learned that RadioShack is closing 400-700 stores due to its poor 2005 financial results. And oh, by the way, their CEO is being investigated for falsifying his resume.

And the news stopped there. So I went to the web and "googled" the CEO's name and all the words I could think of to find more information on this interesting bit of news. I only found one site with a sentence or two on the CEO's resume issue.

In the 4 days since then I have learned that the CEO resigned -- but only when RadioShack was forced to do an investigation to seek out the truth. This time I heard the news on ABC TV. I googled again, and with no general response, I turned to ABC for a little more information.

So, in 1994, the not-yet CEO decided to add two college degrees to his resume. Now, what harm could that really bring -- obviously he proved himself strong enough in 11 years to get promoted to CEO in May of 2005. And I can't imagine that the 2005 4th quarter's 62% decline in RadioShack's net income could be blamed on two imaginary degrees after 7 months as CEO.

But why isn't this more shocking to us? Most likely it's because we are becoming more and more jaded by and accepting of people and actions that are out of integrity. While this isn't a major scandal, it is increasingly the state of our workplace and most of us don't care for that "state."

So, the real question is: What are we doing in our organizations to make sure we are not experiencing the same issues and concerns?

Out of general curiosity as to what percentage of stores RadioShack may close (6-10%), I briefly visited their web site. Here's how they described themselves:

" Fort Worth, Texas-based RadioShack Corporation (NYSE: RSH) is the nation's most trusted consumer electronics specialty retailer..."

Since my sense of humor is a little warped, I found the irony pretty humorous. They were so trusting, they didn't check their CEO's credentials. But then, do you?

Some of you don't do any background or reference checks when you hire new employees. The person looks good on paper and presents well during interviews, and you assume no one is going to tell you anything honestly negative in a reference, so why check?

Some of you are legally required to check credentials, licenses and backgrounds, especially in the health and child services industries. But what about the rest of us? Do you call previous employers or just the references provided? Do you check colleges for degrees? Do you check actual length of service, discuss the depth of the jobs they performed?

"No-- I don't have enough time." That's the answer I expect. But perhaps it's time to rethink the liability, integrity and ethics in your organization. Who do you want working in your organization and is it worth an extra 30 minutes to find out if they are truly who and what they say they are? Are you a trusting organization or a trusted organization?

I've seen statistics that state that up to 60% of resumes are falsified at various levels. That means that you are likely affected by this phenomenon. For some job applicants, it's more important to get the job, than to be honest in how they get it. So, beware. And consider setting up new methods to get the real scoop on the employees you're entrusting in your organization.

Copyright (c) 2006 Arlene Vernon, HRx, Inc.