Employee screening: what should your business be looking for?

Recruitment can be a time-consuming and costly part of operating a business, but it is also an element that you have to get right.

Hiring the wrong person can mean you have to go back to the drawing board and start the recruitment process again – and this is the best possible scenario. By not screening potential employees correctly, you are opening the door for workplace health and safety risks, theft, critical failures in business processes and much more.

In some cases, employees may have entirely lied about who they are, which can be extremely damaging for your business. That is why comprehensive screening and background checks are essential for every new hire, to ensure you are getting the best person for the job and mitigating any potential risk involved in bringing a new person into your work environment.

Some of the benefits of conducting these screening and pre-employment background checks include:

You can ensure they are who they say they are

Unfortunately, there are people out there willing to commit fraud to get the job they want. That includes fabricated resumes and CVs, social media accounts, work history and more.

In many instances, this will be a very high level of deception and hard to pick up as a fraud. This means the employee is unlikely to be able to perform their duties to the standard required, which can lead to protracted necessary measures to terminate their employment and the downtime and cost needed to go back to the recruitment process.

Employers have a duty of care to their existing staff and customers

While it is true that people often deserve a second chance, it is a fine line when it comes to employment and a criminal past. Because employers have a duty of care to their staff and customers, it is their responsibility to ensure they are not hiring anybody that could be a potential health and safety risk.

That is why proper screening for a criminal past is essential, to not only protect against potential incidents but to ensure everybody in your work environment is kept safe – which is not just a moral obligation, but a legal one.

You get a better quality hire

A resume and LinkedIn account will only paint a partial picture of a prospective employee. Providing they have been truthful in their application, you will get a clear idea on their skills, qualifications, experience and abilities. But what about other, more intangible qualities?

Proper pre-employment screening tests should include other measures like emotional intelligence; ability to work in teams; personality traits, physical strength, and any other relevant factors. These should all be used to map their capacity and skillsets, and where they will fit in the organisation.

This helps you not only select the best possible individual for the job but the best person for the overall culture of the business and the ability to create more successful teams.

The benefits of contracting a third-party organisation

Your business is capable of many things, but is professional detective work one of them? Proper and effective screening and background checking require a special skill set and access to essential databases, which is why it is often better to outsource this process to professionals.

Precise Investigation has the right team, experience and qualifications to ensure you get the most thorough background checks possible. Throughout this journey, we will also conduct proper tests towards the employment process to ensure you get the best quality hire. At the end of the day, our goal is to find someone that fits into your business operations and culture seamlessly.

Click here to see more information on how a private investigator can help further with employee screening.

For extra support or assistance with your case, please do not hesitate to contact us at contactus@precisestigation.com or Tel: 03 9564 7303.