Background checks can help HR professionals ensure that candidates meet the qualifications for their job, stay legally compliant, and reduce liability risks like negligent hiring. However, these processes can be time-consuming and expensive.
Automating this process can make handling high volumes of applications and new hires easier without sacrificing the quality of results.
Cost-Effectiveness
Regarding employee background checks (DBS in the UK), HR professionals always look for ways to save time and cut costs. They’re doing this by using automated systems to process their verifications. This saves them time and money while ensuring they meet their regulatory obligations.
For example, suppose an HR professional wants to check criminal records for a new hire. In that case, they can use an identity history summary check software that automatically scrapes court websites for information on convictions, sentencing, pending cases, and more. The software then compiles the data into the format required for reporting. This process is much faster than the traditional method of contacting each courthouse individually.
HR professionals can also automate other verification processes, such as reference checks, through software that sends questions to the candidates’ references and compiles the responses. This helps them save time and money by streamlining the reference checking process and reducing liability risks by reducing human error.
The biggest benefit of automated verification is that it is more cost-effective than manual methods. Compared to hiring a team of human researchers to manually verify the data, a background screening company’s software can save a business more than two workdays of data entry for every 100 candidates screened on average. That’s a significant saving, especially considering the time and resources required to do it manually.
Time-Saving
Many HR professionals need help with the number of tasks they must do. During pre-employment screening practices, HR managers have to check references, contact previous employers, and perform criminal background checks on candidates. In addition, they must verify an applicant’s education and credentials. This takes up a lot of time that HR personnel can use for other tasks.
Having the right technology makes these processes faster and easier. It enables HR to use database integrations to speed up the verification process. Moreover, it eliminates the need for manual data entry and selection of search types. This helps reduce the turnaround time for completed reports and cuts administrative expenses.
Background checks are important because they help you identify any potential risks and make informed hiring decisions that protect your employees and customers. Aside from that, they are an essential component of compliance management and help you avoid legal liabilities. However, working with a vendor that can deliver quality results is important. You can tell whether a vendor provides the best possible results by checking their track record.
A good background check service should be able to humanize the entire process by looking at each candidate through a lens that considers their circumstances and avoids commoditizing them into a bucket. The result should be a smoother, fairer, and more efficient experience for both the candidate and the hiring manager.
Accuracy
HR managers are responsible for ensuring that new hires do not pose a risk to employees or clients. That is why it is crucial to have an accurate background check system that can unearth any potential risks associated with a criminal record or questionable past. This can help ensure that you are not hiring someone with a serious criminal history that could result in legal liability for your business.
The accuracy of automated background checks can also make the hiring process more efficient. HR professionals often have a lot of tasks on their plate, so the ability to automate background checks can save them time and effort. Instead of waiting on a vendor to complete a search, an HR professional can fill out a simple form and have the results instantly made available.
This can free up valuable HR staff time to focus on other important tasks and reduce the burden on administrative staff who may have to do the actual searches. This is especially important when HR staff deal with a high volume of background checks during a busy hiring season. In addition, a background check service can include built-in redundancies that will allow the company to continue working even if an employee leaves or an internet connection fails. This makes the automation of background checks an extremely effective way to streamline the hiring process and make it more efficient for HR staff.
Security
A key concern of HR professionals is protecting the safety of employees and customers from the threat of violent, erratic, or dangerous criminal behavior. Pre-employment background checks help mitigate the risk by ensuring that employees have not committed serious, threatening crimes; however, if an employee does commit a crime while at work, this could put the company at risk for legal liabilities and costly damages. Continuous arrest monitoring offers an additional layer of security by letting HR know immediately when a current employee is arrested or has been charged with a crime. This allows for rapid intervention and may even prevent a potential workplace violence incident before it occurs.
While many aspects of hiring are shifting to digital technology, one critical process remains outside the realm of most ATS systems: pre-employment background screenings. While ATS systems put job postings, marketing, resume importing, candidate tracking, and other information into one simple repository, they often don’t include provisions for integrating third-party screening services. This can create a fragmented data stream between the ATS and the background check service provider, which could open the door to security vulnerabilities and compliance violations. To maximize the security of these data transfers, HR teams should choose a background check service provider accredited by an international standard such as ISO 27001:2013 for Information Security Management.
Also Read About: Why a 3-Wheel Electric Motorcycle Might be the Best Option For You
