Six reasons businesses use background screening

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In many countries, background screening is part and parcel of the recruitment process, but in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (Emea), this is often not the case.
Screening is still relatively new to many countries in Emea, and with the exception of regulated industries such as financial services, it is far from being universally utilised.
However, background screening can offer a great number of benefits for its early adopters, including improved security, a better quality of hires and improved employee retention, as we've seen in our 2018 Employment Background Screening Benchmark Report.
 
Why 'Screen'?
So why should you screen new hires, and rescreen staff when they are changing roles? There are a number of motivations for companies to screen their employees. Here are six of the main reasons that companies use background screening services.
S - Security: Employers work hard to keep their companies free from potential internal threats. The cost of a bad hire is too high to ignore so for many companies; background screening is great way to improve their internal security and mitigate the risk of new hires.
C - Compliance: Some regulated industries are required by law to background-screen their employees, for example, many roles in the financial services sector in the UK. Beyond this, if you plan on screening applicants internally, you have to be ready for General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) changes, which will affect the way that you store and use applicant data. By using a background screening company with a detailed GDPR plan, you don't have to face the minefield of the GDPR alone.
R - Reputation: The cost of a bad hire, both financial and reputational, can be very expensive. Mistakes from under-qualified employees who misrepresented themselves on their CVs could cost a business dearly, whatever role they have within a firm. Background-screening will not prevent new hires from making mistakes, but it will highlight discrepancies between their CVs and the skills and experience that they have, making it easier for you to spot people who are misrepresenting themselves on their CVs.
E - Ethics: Companies often feel that they have a moral responsibility to look after their staff and keep them safe from any internal threats. Our recent EMEA Benchmark Reports revealed that 89 per cent of HR and risk professionals asked had experienced candidates misrepresenting data in their CVs or job applications.
E - Equality: It is important to ensure that all of your candidates are treated equally in the recruitment process, so that your business can't be accused of discrimination. One way to do this is to ensure that all new hires are screened proportionally to the roles which they are applying for, which can be difficult to regulate if you screen potential employees in-house. Using a background-screening provider with global capabilities allows you to provide a consistent and fair approach to screening.
N - Negative Experiences: Some businesses don't get on-board with background screening until they have experienced the repercussions of not screening candidates. Background-screening pre-hire is a lot like having a property surveyed before you buy it - you're not hoping to find something wrong, but are making sure that you have all the facts before you make your decision. Help to prevent future problems by screening your applicants before hire, rather than waiting for something bad to prompt a change in procedure.
The writer is regional sales manager for the Middle East at HireRight. Views expressed are his own and do not reflect the newspaper's policy.