BOSTON -- Home Depot has made significant changes to its internal employee and subcontractor policies nationwide, following a series of Team 5 Investigations.

In May, an executive with the nation's largest home improvement store promised changes, but would not reveal the specifics. Now, Team 5 Investigates has uncovered in great detail how Home Depot is taking action to make sure its customers are not only satisfied, but safe.

No customer has taken more of an interest in The Home Depot’s policies than Niki LaBrecque. The retail giant sent a convicted sex offender to the 27-year-old woman’s home to refinish her kitchen cabinets.

“They put my life in jeopardy,” said LaBrecque. Team 5 Investigates tracked down the convicted and unlicensed subcontractor who was sent to her home, and exposed not just a serious weakness in the Home Depot’s background check policy, but yet another example of the company’s failure to complete quality work. “It looks very unfinished, definitely not a $7000 job,” said Labrecque. It’s a complaint we've heard time and time again from hundreds of Home Depot's customers.

Back in May, Team 5 Investigates traveled to The Home Depot's headquarters in Atlanta to get some answers about the allegations from hundreds of local customers who say work done on their homes was shoddy, as well as questionable policies found in Home Depot’s At Home Services operations installation manual published in September 2001. “I can’t really speak to previous history, but I can tell you that moving forward, we have set standards and criteria that our installers live by as it relates to their licensing, background checks, insurance,” said Gary White, VP of At Home Services, for The Home Depot.

White also told us the manual we uncovered is no longer in use. But he refused to prove that to us by showing us the company’s newest policies. “Today there is no manual in a three-ring binder, but there is a living document that we use to manage and set expectations with all of our companies,” said White.

Team 5 Investigates obtained Home Depot’s most recent online reference guide for service providers who are sent to customers' homes, and it shows significant changes to what has been published in the past. “I think this is a step in the direction of tightening up the requirements and recognizing the public needs to have confidence and know that it’s going to be safe to have these contractors doing the work,” said professor Jim Post of Boston University's School of Management.

The most significant changes relate to background checks. There are now new obligations for those who are supposed to be doing them and an increase in how often they’re supposed to performed. Home Depot is also demanding that service providers verify the identity and social security number for each worker. A failure to do so could result in hefty fines.

Workers must also wear a new type of badge to show they’ve met the new requirements. If they don’t, the fine is $500. Licensing infractions, including a failure to pull permits, could cost a contractor $1,000. And for every consumer complaint filed with an attorney general’s office where the service provider fails to demonstrate an effort to resolve the complaint, that service provider is subject to a $2,500 penalty. “It certainly shows that they’re serious about making sure the quality of service that’s delivered to customers is consistent with the standards that they’ve set,” said Post.

These most recent changes that were put into effect in June are consistent with what the Home Depot told Team 5 Investigates two months ago in Atlanta. “We’re building a much more regimented process to help insure and inspect everything that our contractors are doing,” said White.

And we’ve learned store employees and contractors are now being told to be transparent about who’s doing the installation. A previous manual said, “Do not tell customers this is an outside service.” But new guidelines state that customers should be told an independent contractor, not a Home Depot employee will be doing the work on their home. “Part of their problem is that they’ve lost control and that’s why shoddy work has been done under their name. This is part of an effort, I think, to reassert control over the system and make sure that everyone that does work in the name of Home Depot is indeed meeting the standards that they’ve set out,” said Post.

We showed the changes to Niki LaBrecque, who was surprised to find out that sharing her story with Team 5 Investigates actually made a difference. “If they do follow through with all of the things they say, I guess that is when I’ll feel like it did accomplish something,” said LaBrecque.

Home Depot officials told us they’ll continue to review company policies and will make adjustments wherever necessary to meet customers needs for safe and qualified installers.