Blog
Case Studies
Downloads
Podcasts
Events
Press and Media
Webinars
Newsletter
Boost the effectiveness of your employee background checks and bring transformative improvements to your hiring and onboarding.
In this blog
The importance of digitalising background checks
5 key questions for HR when choosing a background checking provider
The impact of faster employee background checking
Effective talent screening ensures your candidates are properly qualified and eligible to take up the role. This helps mitigate risk to reputation, colleagues, and compliance.
Speeding up the process and cutting employee turnover costs also saves the business money and enhances the candidate experience. This is vital to attract and retain the best talent.
The importance of digitalising background checks
Manual, or even semi-automated, background checking services are prone to human error. This slows down turnaround times, leads to inaccuracies, and increases costs. It can also result in regulatory non-compliance.
But fully automating your background checking process turns this situation around. It also ensures the candidate experience is smoother and more professional.
5 key questions for HR when choosing a background checking provider
There are many myths and misconceptions about background checking services. Choosing the right partner is crucial. Here are some questions HR professionals should ask themselves before making their selection:
1. Does the solution support global compliance and align with cultural sensitivities?
For businesses with a global presence, international compliance is a must. Employee background checking solutions must be able to gather data from multiple sources across multiple regions.
But when assessing a potential employee, it’s never just about getting the legal and regulatory side of things right. It is also about finding a provider that is aware of local cultural sensitivities too.
UK talent screening practices often differ from those in other countries. For example, it may be perfectly legal to check the references of United Arab Emirates citizen. But cultural differences make it important to tread softly and avoid alienating candidates.
2. Is it agile and scalable?
Ensure your potential provider can offer fully automated employee background checks across a range of areas. These include employment, education, personal, criminal, and right to work.
To do so effectively, their systems must integrate with your existing HR, recruitment, and onboarding applications. This creates a streamlined, end-to-end talent screening process that is more agile and less error prone. Integration also enables you to pre-set certain checks for specific job roles, such as criminal record checks by the UK Disclosure and Barring Service.
Just as important is ensuring your solution is scalable and can accommodate the growing needs of the business without comprising quality. This is where a fully outsourced service comes in.
3. Is it future-proof?
Employment legislation continues to evolve rapidly. This means it’s essential to choose a provider whose solution is flexible enough to proactively keep pace. Check out your potential partner’s technology roadmap to ensure its system is keeping abreast of the latest innovations. This includes developments in social media screening.
4. Does the solution comply with all relevant data protection laws?
Good background checking services are not only designed to protect your interests as an employer. They’re also built to protect the safety and security of each job candidate’s personal information, no matter where they are in the world.
For employers operating in multiple foreign markets, finding a provider whose solution conforms to local privacy and data protection rules is a must.
5. Does it enable both pre- and post-employment screening?
Pre-employment background checks help mitigate employee-related risks, such as inappropriate behaviour, and social media abuse. But continuous employee verification has now become standard practice in many industries such as finance and healthcare. Such checks include driving record and social media history.
Other employers opt to rescreen individuals if their role or responsibilities change. The goal here is to confirm their suitability for a new position.
Whichever approach you adopt, it is vital to look for a provider offering customised programmes that fit your specific risks and requirements.
The impact of faster employee background checking
Over the years, many industries have faced significant challenges due to slow background checking procedures.
Zellis Background Checking offers an end-to-end talent screening process that’s both swift and accurate. Integration with HR, recruitment, and onboarding systems ensures a seamless candidate experience.
This speeds up your time-to-hire and ensures only the necessary checks are conducted, optimising costs and reducing inefficiency. It also cuts the HR team’s admin burden and mitigates the risks associated with non-compliance and data breaches.
Conclusion: Build present and future success
Finding effective ways to digitise your employee background checks will enable you to transform your hiring, onboarding, engagement, and retention for the better.
Ask yourself the five questions above when selecting a partner. This framework will help you both meet the needs of today and adapt to the imminent challenges of tomorrow.
Key takeaways
- Manual, or even semi-automated, talent screening approaches are prone to human error.
- Inefficient background checking processes can lead to slow turnaround times, non-compliance, a poor candidate experience, and higher costs.
- Digitalising the background checking process makes gathering and verifying information faster and more accurate.
- This results in falling admin costs falling and a more positive candidate experience.
- Bear in mind our five incisive questions when selecting your partner and you’ll see your hiring process transform for the better.
Be the best at talent screening
Watch this expert webinar and discover all you need to know in the Best Practice Guide for Background Checking 2024.
