Background screening, an integral part of HR activity

Important investment With individuals getting involved in frauds there is an increasing need of this activity in firms

Human capital is increasingly being acknowledged as the most important investment for any company. Finding the right talent in the right job at the right time is a humungous challenge that the HR teams are facing in the current hiring scenario.

With increasing connectivity, there is an advent of a truly global workforce, multi-location operations which has led to an exponential increase in the risks associated with candidate recruiting and contract staff/vendor hiring.

In all of this, in the more recent times, involvement of individuals from corporates in various crimes have led to increased realisation about the value for background screening all employees at all levels in the recruitment process.

Reported incidences of car drivers being involved in crimes in the IT/ ITeS sector, access to sensitive customer information in BFSI sector, instances of staff in educational institutions involved in exploitation cases — all have led to growing awareness of the need for background screening of employees as well as vendor/contract staff.

The reality is that the organisation’s reputation is at stake incase they hire someone with questionable background. Brand equity and value can be adversely impacted if it is known that an organisation didn’t do enough due diligence before recruiting a certain individual who had questionable background. Thus, lack of background screening or even less number of checks conducted on current or potential employees is something that would come back to haunt any organisation — through reduced business, inability to retain better employees and adverse impact on its public perception.

In fact, it does become very embarrassing for organizations who do not conduct adequate background screening of their employees or their vendor/contract staff when that aspect gets exposed.

BS industry in India

The concept of background screening was introduced in India about seven years back. This was triggered by the changed security environment post the 9/11 attacks in the USA. With a number of Fortune 1000 companies initiating business in India — either through setting up their own offices or outsourced work to India, it was expected that their India based entities/partners (mainly IT and BPO/ITeS companies) followed processes that were integral to their recruitment policies. (Incidentally, more than 90 per cent of Fortune 500 companies have a formal policy of background screening their employees.) This led to background screening of their employees as well as their outsourced staff.

The concept of background screening is now no more limited to just IT, ITeS or the BFSI segments. Growing number of organisations in the manufacturing, petroleum, hospitality, health care, retail, travel, telecom, educational institutions and entertainment industries are adopting background screening practice. It is becoming a part of the standard outsourcing contract and therefore Indian companies continue to proactively adopt it as part of their business process.

The background screening process involves carrying out different kinds of checks given below. Any misrepresentation in the above checks is reported as discrepancy. Discrepancy rate is the percentage of misrepresentations/fraudulent/adverse information that the comprehensive Background Screening procedure uncovers during the verification process.

* Education
* Employment
* Site Visit
* Address verification
* Identity check
*PAN Card/Drivers License/Passport verification
*In US: SSN check
* Criminal Records, Regulatory and Compliance Databases Search
*Drug Testing
n Nationality check
n Marital status check
n Date of Birth check
n Infinity screening
n CV Validation
It is important that all checks are initiated only after an authorisation in writing by the concerned candidate.
A credible background screening company will ensure that  the process goes only through the legal route of getting verifications (which may imply relatively later verification compared to some agencies who provide ‘quick’ results but through processes which may not be able to stand the scrutiny of law!) through the official channels and by accessing information available in public domain.  
The best way of managing background checks anywhere globally is to ensure that these are done by organisations which specialize in conducting background checks.
Moreover, it is better to go for background check service providers who have a global coverage — as they would be able to better understand and follow local geography specific requirements and would know the specific sources of information along with the related challenges. A specialised background screening organisation would not compromise its reputation by not following the compliance requirements.  
Infinity Screening
Companies are exploring the newly introduced concept of ‘Infinity Screening’, particularly for criminal record checks, for all their current employees. Experience and trends prove that background screening acts as a deterrent and thus remains a strong and effective risk mitigation strategy.
 Just by introducing this concept, concerned organisations will have candidates with criminal records leave their jobs rather than get exposed. It is recommended that criminal records of employees be conducted once a year.   
Way forward
Data shows that individuals with questionable background tend to join organisations that do not conduct background screening of its employees or contract/vendor staff.
Hence, when these organisations do start conducting background screening, they find many discrepancies (number of employees who have misrepresented facts on their resumes or have a criminal background) and/or go through huge attrition (as employees who have misrepresented facts or have negative background prefer to leave than be found out) when they announce background screening.
This is a good proof of how background screening becomes a deterrent against employees or prospective employees misrepresenting facts on their resumes or employment applications. Thus, background screening proves to be a good insurance against risk to reputation related to bad hires!
 The background screening industry is still in its nascent phase. There are many organisations/institutions in India who, as a policy, do not share information with third parties for verification purposes. For some organisations and institutions which do not mind sharing information, it is a long process as databases are manually maintained and verification process involves going through very old data maintained physically.
Employment checks that can be conducted at the click of a button in the US have to be conducted through phone calls or faxes or emails or site visits in India.
Moreover, many organisations in India do not maintain databases or records for temporary employees, which lead to unavailability of such crucial information.  
Criminal background information that is available through various online databases in US and UK is incomparable with what is available in other geographies. In India, such information needs to be sought locally in the concerned jurisdictions. Also, digitisation is at a nascent stage in our country leading to high dependence on manual process of verification — which can be time consuming and expensive.  
Collaborative online database solutions involving all parties concerned — the candidate, the recruiter, the verifier, the verifying authorities, etc. — will help in developing a ‘pre-qualified and pre-checked’ ready-to-hire talent pool — which is the need of the hour in the present Indian economic scenario.

(The writer is Managing Director (West Asia), First Advantage Pvt. Ltd. email: [e-mail])