Being HR professional, we have to deal with rigorous recruitment cycles, and for this, we must meet with several candidates before closing the vacancy. Every HR person has their style of evaluating the candidates, but one thing that needs to be kept in mind before making the final hiring decision is to “Never judge a book by its cover” (Stonehouse, 2017), since at times we might overlook some critical points, perhaps due to a fancy resume or qualification. Every HR professional should consider a crucial step before taking a candidate on board: run employee screening.

According to Business Week – 16% of executive resumes contain false academic claims and/or material omissions relating to educational experience. The U.S. Department of Labor estimates that the average cost of a bad hiring decision can equal 30% of the first year’s potential earnings.If you are an HR professional and reading this article, then I can assure you that other HR professionals must be thinking, “is it worth investing additional time and money in pre-employment background screening service?” Let me tell you the key benefits that you can gain from conducting pre-employment background screening services:

1. Better Compliance: it keeps you out of legal issues

Let’s suppose one of your employees commits fraud in your company, and after investigations, you came to know that the employee did the same with previous employers. At this point, you will regret not conducting their background check, as if you had conducted their employment and criminal check, then you wouldn’t have hired them in the first place.

2. Ensures credibility when performing sensitive tasks

In addition to legal issues, some background checks can verify a candidate’s creditability in performing their on-job duties. For instance, when a candidate is being hired for the accounts department where petty cash and the company’s account handling are their primary responsibilities, their employment check may come across that his previous employment has concluded due to mishandling of accounts.

3. Safer Work Environment: keep employees and clients safe

Conducting Background checks can also convey a message throughout the company’s stakeholders, especially its clients, that all employees hired in the company have gone through rigorous checks. Therefore, the data shared by the clients are in safe hands, thus increasing the overall integrity of the company and its staff.

4. Verifies education and certification

The increase in the number of fake degrees has amplified the importance of pre-employment check of educations. Therefore, all degrees and certificates of the applicant under consideration should be verified. The outcome of verification is not just about checking an applicant’s honesty but also verifying the legal status of the degrees and their issuing authorities.

5. Stronger hires, more savings: it gives an overall picture of the applicants

Apart from the interviews, pre-employment background checks can help the interviewer to make their hiring decision accordingly. For instance, candidates may have successfully cleared the interview process, but in their employment checks, the company found that they had resigned from their services after they were accused of sexual harassment by colleagues. Irrespective of how competent a candidate is for the vacancy, such red flags regarding the candidate’s behaviour can completely change the hiring decision and safeguard the company from future issues.

It is indeed worth spending extra time and money on pre-employment background screening because making a wrong hiring decision can not only increase recruitment cost and time but may also incur the cost of damage that employee has given to the company, whether in the form of litigation’s or damaging the company’s goodwill.

So, if your company is not conducting background screening! Think Again!

Being in HR, you might be creating liability for the company by making the wrong hiring decision. It’s never too late to correct your actions, so contact us, and we can provide our employment background screening services. As it is rightly said, I quote, “better safe than sorry” (Bateson, 2008). 

CRI Group, based in London, works with companies across the Americas, Europe, Africa, Middle East and Asia-Pacific as a one-stop international Risk Management and Due Diligence solutions provider. We have the largest proprietary network of background screening analysts and investigators across the Middle East and Asia. Our global presence ensures that no matter how international your operations are, we have the network needed to provide you with all you need, wherever you happen to be. As a result, CRI Group’s global team of certified fraud examiners work as a discreet white-labelled supplier to some of the world’s largest organisations. CRI Group also holds BS 102000:2013 and BS 7858:2012 Certifications, is an HRO certified provider and partner with Oracle.

References

1. Bateson, J., 2008. Building Hope: Leadership in the Nonprofit World. United States Of America: Greenwood Publishing Group.
2. Stonehouse, R. A., 2017. You’re Hired! Job Search Strategies That Work. 1st ed. s.l.:eBookIt.com.

Filed under: All Industries, Employee Background Check, Expert insights (Sidebar), Insights by admin
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