Global employees, existing staff and contingent workers on the radar
Background screening is on the rise in a number of areas, according to a recent report. Screening of foreign workers and domestic workers with international backgrounds is increasing dramatically while screening of extended workforces — such as contingent workers — and existing employees is also growing, according to the study by HireRight in Irvine, Calif.
In the last decade, screening has become a mainstream, required practice of recruiting and onboarding, with the predominant focus on regular new hires. But the focus has recently shifted to other risk areas outside the core groups, said Rob Pickell, vice-president of customer solutions at HireRight. At the same time, the screening industry has developed better tools, workers are increasingly globalized and more companies are using contingent labour, he said.
One-quarter of 1,818 HR, talent management, security, safety and other professionals around the world who participated in the survey said they conduct or plan to conduct screening globally in 2010, compared to 11 per cent in 2009. One-half do so on workers in international offices while the other 50 per cent screen domestic-based employees with international backgrounds, found the 2010 Employment Screening Benchmarking Report.
There’s a lot more mobility across country lines, within the European Union or North America, highlighting the need to screen global workers, said Pickell. But each country has its own challenges when it comes to checking into people’s backgrounds.
“What is available country by country does vary quite significantly. The one norm would be education and previous employment verifications. Typically, that’s readily available everywhere that we conduct screening today,” he said. “The biggest challenge is how do you make sense of that level of complexity and come up with a general policy you can apply wherever possible.”
Screening firms are definitely doing more background screening for clients with global workers, said Tim Hardie, president of Hire Performance in Toronto.
“A lot of work can be done across borders now… so (companies) can hire perhaps better-qualified people from farther away but, in order to protect themselves, they still need to do their background confirmations,” he said.
Canadian employers are starting to screen global employees much more thoroughly as companies realize it’s not enough to have the government do checks as part of the immigration policy, said Dan Fallows, a national director at Garda, a pre-employment screening firm in Toronto, who has seen a major increase in demand in this area. And more American companies are keen to see their policies followed in global offices, he said.
Screening the extended and existing workforce
In 2009, 31 per cent of organizations screened the “extended workforce” — which includes temporary workers, contractors and vendor employees — and that figure grew to 35 per cent in 2010, according to HireRight. The growth rate is slower than might be expected but can be partly explained by the recession, said Pickell. But that should change as 66 per cent of companies use contingent labour to supplement their workforce and 44 per cent expect growth in this group.
It’s not necessarily that more people are using temporary staffing, but companies with established policies and guidelines are expanding the screening to contract or placement agencies, said Fallows.
“We are definitely seeing a huge increase in the temporary staffing field in the last year, more driven from their clients (that have) their placement companies do a background screening,” he said. “That’s definitely a hot thing these days.”
Another reason for the push is the influence of American policies, with American parent companies starting to push policies on Canadian counterparts, said Fallows. The laws in the United States are also a lot stricter with regulatory requirements — for people dealing with credit cards, for example — whereas Canada has lagged behind, he said.
Another area of activity is around existing employees. Eighty-four per cent of companies screen external job candidates, 22 per cent check internal candidates and 16 per cent check existing employees, according to HireRight’s study. Typically this is done when there’s a promotion or transfer but, again, this trend is about organizations closing gaps in programs relative to risk, aided by easier access to online data and improved screening capabilities, said Pickell.
“Companies are recognizing once somebody’s onboard, it doesn’t mean something isn’t going to change over time,” he said.
In addition, concerns around workplace violence and harassment — as seen with Ontario’s Bill 168 — suggest companies should have a tight program that includes recurring screening of employees, said Pickell.
Canada lags behind the U.S. in screening existing employees on a regular basis, but the practice is increasing exponentially, said Fallows, as employers want to ensure employee safety.
Credit checks up and down
Interestingly, credit checks are seeing a decline in activity, according to the study, which largely looked at companies in North America. One-third (32 per cent) of respondents said they conduct credit checks, down from 42 per cent in 2009.
The decline in credit checks in the U.S. can be explained by regulatory requirements, such as the Fair Credit Reporting Act, which govern the use of such information, said Fallows.
“There’s definitely, in the last two to three years, been a tightening up as to what information you can collect to make a decision on a hire. And you are definitely seeing that come up to Canada, not necessarily from a legislative standpoint but from the decisions that are coming out of the privacy commissioners.”
The information collected really has to pertain to decision-making on the job and have a direct correlation to the actual position a person is being hired for. In a lot of cases, a blanket policy that requires credit checks for everybody has to go by the wayside, said Fallows.
That decline also applies more to American firms, because Canada has seen a big increase in credit checks, which can also confirm alias names, social insurance numbers, birth dates, previous employment and addresses, said Hardie.
“We can help (employers) discover, potentially, if there’s any gaps on resumés or information missing or dates that have been changed to align better to fit the resumé,” he said.
Little interest in checking social networks
And while there’s been plenty of buzz about social networks, these are not proving popular as a screening tool. Nearly two-thirds (61 per cent) of HireRight’s respondents have not, and don’t plan to, review social networking sites during screening (though 12 per cent do, 13 per cent plan to and 15 per cent are unsure).
For now, there are too many risks associated with looking at information on social networking sites, such as claims of discrimination, said Pickell.
“I’m not aware of any top-tier screening company that offers a regulated social network screen,” he said.
