Best Practices for Pre-Employment Background Check
Pre-employment background check has become a matter of necessity these days. Employers who are unsure if they should be conducting a background check before finalizing on their new hires need to consider these facts: The cost of bad hire can be 2.5 times the average employee salary. Pre-employment background check is a way to stop bad hires.
Following are some of the measurable benefits of conducting employee background check before finalizing the hire.
- Fewer bad hires resulting in reduced training costs
- Significant reduction in costs associated with employee thefts
- Reduction in employee turn-over and related costs
- Improvement in overall workplace safety
Here are a few best practices employers must follow to ensure hassle-free background check process.
Do follow the law of the land:
It is very important for an employer to understand that conducting extensive checks on employee’s personal and sensitive information can sometimes prove to be detrimental for your business. What information is considered sensitive and personal differs from country to country and can change with time as laws change. Here are a few examples.
- The Americans for Disabilities Act allows the employers to ask about employee’s ability to perform a specific job but they can’t ask for medical records.
- The Genetic Information Non-Discrimination Act prevents any USA based employers from making any hiring decisions based on the genetic information of the employees.
- Basic information about a person’s military service can be asked but special permissions are required to get this information under The Federal privacy Act (USA).
Considering the complexity of laws, Getting your company’s legal experts involved in the policy making for background check is an advisable thing to do.
Get the written consent from the employee for conducting background check
Getting employee’s permission for conducting a background check is very crucial for companies who want to avoid any legal hassles later. Many countries have stricter privacy laws classifying some information as private and personal to employees and obtaining such information might invite legal cases against you by employees.
Define the extent of background checks required:
Pre-employment background checks can include checking credit history, checking criminal records, lie detector tests, checking medical history, bankruptcies, Military services records, school records, employment history, compensation records etc.
Before starting the process, you need to be very clear on how much detailed check is necessary for a particular job profile. It is important to understand that every additional step adds up to your cost. You don’t need to check criminal records of a person who has applied for a front office receptionist position unless your company is dealing with defense or armed services but Checking criminal records for security personnel’s position might be a necessary precaution.
Do not use the “Box”:
The EEOC and other countries are trying to ban the “box”. Box means the question that appears on the application forms - “have you even been convicted of a crime?” “Box” is considered an immediate discrimination. The better way is to interview and consider all applicants equally and then run a thorough background check.
Be Consistent and Fair:
Ensure that the processes are consistent for everyone. 2 applicants applying for the same profile must undergo same searches and investigations otherwise it might fetch legal implications.
Be Transparent about your investigation:
When you find something from the background check that can impact the hiring decision, you must inform the candidate about the same and give him an opportunity to explain. So many mistakes, misconceptions, reporting errors and sometimes costly legal litigation can be resolved or avoided by simple face-to-face communication with applicants.
Decide who will perform the check
Decide beforehand, if you want to perform the check in-house or would hire an external agency to perform the same.
Hiring an external agency has its own merits as well as costs associated with it. Factors such as seniority of the position, confidentiality of the information the position will provide to the person, your hiring volume etc should be taken into consideration before deciding on outsourcing your background check.
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