It is rare these days to hear such a question about the usefulness of background checks, but there are still those who prefer to trust their instincts when making a decision to hire someone. Let’s make one thing clear, good instincts and the ability to read a person’s character in the brief time of a job interview are essential in Human Resources. The thing is they’re not enough. Pre-employment screening checks are a must in today’s world, and here are the main benefits of using the many tools available to check on a candidate’s past.
Improve Workforce Quality
All HR experts know that people lie on their Cvs or even during the job interview. To be honest, most are little white lies meant to gloss over some less pleasant aspects of the candidate’s personality or career up to that moment. Embellishing one’s past achievements can be harmless, if we’re talking about small things, of little consequence. What happens when you discover that a certain employee grossly misrepresented their past achievements and work experience, which makes them unfit for their job, only they’re already hired because you didn’t check?
This puts at risk the company and its productivity and there’s only one solution. Firing that person and looking for a new employee, hopefully, this time checking on their CV and their references to make sure this time they’re not lying.
Protect your company through criminal record checks
Not all Australian businesses are required by law to do background checks on their employees. Many do that voluntarily because it’s the best way to protect the company’s interest and your staff.
Doing a background check can easily become routine once you start working with an online police check agency. In Australia, there are options like ANCC – Australian National Character Check whose website link is https://www.australiannationalcharactercheck.com.au/ and provide a process that is completely online. There is no red tape, the whole process of ordering a background check is pretty straightforward and there’s no time wasted. The results come back in 2 days, straight to your email, and you get a clear picture of a candidate’s past.
If they don’t have a criminal record, all’s well and you can hire that person.
If they do have a record, it’s best that you know of it before bringing them into your organisation.
An old conviction for a minor offence, yes, maybe you can accept that if that person ticks all the right boxes. On the other hand, if that otherwise nice guy turns out to be a person with a history of thefts, maybe you don’t want to hire them. Would you entrust your valuables to such a person? If not, why would you give such a character access to your company’s funds or products?
The same goes for a person with a history of sexual harassment or assault. It’s clearly a person who can create a lot of disturbances in the workplace, destroying your personnel’s morale or putting your company in a bad situation if they represent you in front of your customers or business partners.
Reduce liability
This has to do with background checks also. Once you hire someone without conducting background checks, they might create a scandal, maybe inside the company or involving your clients. Should that happen, you risk being held accountable for that person’s actions as your representative. It’s a case of bad hire and your company may be accused of negligence in hiring an ex-convict and putting others at risk. You can avoid such a scandal, the financial loss as well as the loss of reputation with just one simple background check. It’s that simple!
