MITIGATE EMPLOYMENT RISK THROUGH EFFECTIVE BACKGROUND CHECKING

Employees are key to the success of any business but can also be its biggest threat. It is highly unlikely that candidates, applying for any job, will disclose unsavoury aspects of his/her past. A lack of proper background checks could potentially lead to crime, injury or financial loss. Managing risk at the point of employment will go a long way to reduce risks in other areas of your operation.

Reference checks form a key part of this process, but smart hiring should always involve factual background screening before you make that final decision to employ or not to employ a new candidate.

WHICH BACKGROUND CHECKS ARE ESSENTIAL

Let’s look at a couple of key background checks that you need to consider and why:

ID Verification

Identity fraud/theft is very common in our society today and the one thing you need to be certain of, is that the candidate you are interviewing is who they claim to be. A candidate that is misleading you with regards to their identity will mislead you in many other ways.

Credit Checks

Credit checks are or must be done to establish the financial profile of a candidate.

Some of the reasons are as follows:

• Determine a candidate’s, who might have to manage a budget, sense of financial responsibility and their personal stability
• Candidates with a bankruptcy indicates the possibility the candidate lacks responsibility to meet financial obligations
• In most instances credit checks are done in order to protect against internal fraud and theft. A candidate with huge amounts of debt could be susceptible to unlawful attractions to make up deficits.

Criminal Record Verification

Every time you hire a new employee, you take a risk that the candidate might not be qualified to do the job or that they may prove harmful to your company in some criminal form in future. The best form of risk mitigation is to conduct a proper criminal background check.

By conducting a proper criminal background check you:

• You avoid hiring candidates who have fraud, theft and embezzlement convictions
• You reduce the chances of employing a candidate with a history of involvement in violent crimes such as hijacking
• You reduce losses from employee theft and lower the liability that can come with a lawsuit for negligent hiring
• You protect your business reputation and spare public relations efforts should one of your employees cause criminal harm

Compliance Checks – Driver’s Licenses and Public Driver’s permits (PrDP)

Candidates will be required, in a lot of instances, to drive your company vehicles and you need to ensure that candidates are in compliance with the law, insurance and internal company rules and regulations before they can use one of your vehicles.

Why is this important?

• As in the case with an ID, a fraudulent drivers’ license or is easy to obtain and common in South Africa.
• The candidate may have a valid license, but it has expired or will expire relatively soon
• Vehicle accidents involving unlicensed drivers will have a legal and financial liability for the company
• Obtaining insurance cover for a fraudulently licensed driver place you at risk from a financial and legal perspective

Employers should ensure that they confirm the following when doing a background driver’s licenses and PrDP check:

• That the license and/or PrDP is authenticated and valid
• Confirm the issuing authorized government authority
• Confirm the expiry date and license code

Educational Qualification Verification

Doing a complete education verification on a new candidate allows you to confirm that the candidate meets the basic requirements for the job you intend to employ them for. Education verification enables you to confirm that a candidate has a certain level of a degree, various industry certifications, and other academic achievements, required for the job you want to employ him for.

SOLUTIONS TO DO EFFECTIVE BACKGROUND CHECKS

There are many ways to manage background checks and companies can sign up with any one of the different vendors that specialises in one or more of the various background checks. The key, don't just focus your background check efforts on an ID number alone!! As indicated before, fraudulent ID’s are common, and you might end obtaining information about a person that does not even exist. It is therefore imperative that you run your background checks based on a combination of fingerprint verification and ID number to avoid getting the wrong information. You also don’t want to sign up with various different vendors to get the information you require and should focus on integrated solutions allowing you to check and verify all the background checks in one environment.

myScreening is an integrated solution and allows companies to run background checks, against fingerprints and ID number, for any of the background checks indicated above. All information is safely stored in a secure centralised vault, making it easy to share and transfer employee background information between different departments and branches.

 Some of myScreening’s key features are:

• Use of the myScreening software is free, and allows for the capturing and storage of photographs and fingerprints for identification purposes
• Checks can be queued when offline, making myScreening the ideal background check tool on the road in remote and rural areas
• Easily upload and attach documents such as driver's licenses, polygraph reports, and qualifications needed for internal operational procedures
•  Fingerprints and other information can be stored free of charge should you wish to run any future checks
• Easily view, print, and email checks and combined reports.

 myScreening offers the following background check solutions:

• Criminal Record Checks
• License Verification (Driver's and PDP)
• Identification Checks
• Qualification Verification
• FAIS Comprehensive
• Bank Account Verification
• Citizenship Verification
• Consumer Trace

Please feel free to contact me should you require more information about background checks or the myScreening solution.