Hiring a new employee means an investment in time, money, and resources for your business. Ideally, it is always better to be assured that you have made the right decision. Perhaps most organizations have their own personalized set of requirements for conducting employment background checks. But the main aim is to achieve the most accurate overview of a candidate before getting the employment contract signed and submitted.
The basic steps of pre-employment screening involve verification of previous employment, education, reference checks, and most importantly criminal history checks. Each of the parameters has its own set of compliance that must be adhered to.
As an employer, you must be aware of the different governing laws regarding privacy protection and human rights. Now that you have a brief idea about pre-employment screening, keep reading to know about the powerful reasons for conducting the same.
- Verifies Previous Employment and Educational Information
The primary reason to conduct a pre-employment check is by an employer are to determine if the information provided by the candidate is true. Most often job seekers lie or present false information during the job application process. Some of the common lies include – higher GPA, a higher position in the previous company, proficiency in skills they barely use, and working in the previous organization longer than they have.
Candidates often present false information in these areas and try to easily get away during the interview process. This increases the risk of hiring someone who is not fit for the job role. Here comes the importance of an employment background check. It can help employers to save their time, money, and effort by avoiding these mistakes.
- Protect Everyone Involved with your Organisation
As an employer, your prime responsibility is to protect everyone involved with your organisation such as existing employees, business clients, partners, and customers. A pre-employment background check acts as a preventive measure to ensure the safety of your company and staff. It helps to create a safe and transparent work environment.
You can identify serious problems beforehand by implementing strict screening procedures. Eventually, this will help you to protect your organisation from threatening or discriminatory behavior.
Nowadays, it is very essential to implement a zero-tolerance policy towards sexual harassment, racism, bullying, and mental or physical harassment to create a healthy working environment.
- Maintain Data Integrity
Do you know that internal cybersecurity threats have affected more than 34% of businesses worldwide? In this digital era, interconnectivity has completely changed the way of handling and storing data. Most companies follow protocols for securing their sensitive data on in-house servers. It can only be accessed by selected employees.
Therefore, conducting strict employee screening procedures is not only crucial in avoiding data security breaches but also for meeting legal compliance and protecting customers’ privacy.
Hiring a new employee can be a strenuous and expensive process, especially when it involves various stages. But, remember that the losses incurred in case of an internal security threat will be far greater than the costs involved in employment background screening.
- Meet Legal Compliance
As an employer, you must be legally compliant with the various governing rules and regulations regarding labor law. Businesses having international subsidiaries needs to handle compliance management issues for different countries. Hence, this can be a complex process.
Conducting pre-employment screening ensures that the hired employees have the legal right to employment. Also, it gives an assurance that they have all the relevant qualifications and paperwork to perform the job role efficiently.
Conclusion
Background check is a proven employment screening method to identify qualified applicants during the hiring process. However, make sure to protect the privacy of the candidate by abiding by the governing laws. All countries have different rules and regulations for employment. Businesses failed to observe those laws can face serious legal issues.
Maintaining pre-employment screening compliance will allow you to evaluate and hire fairly. Your screening policy must keep updating with the change in laws regarding employee privacy and protection.
