PLEASE VISIT OUR SPONSORS

---

Dashboard

Published April 2010

Closing Loopholes

  Rob Pickell

A study shows employee background screening is widely practiced but is still missing corners of the workforce.

Employment screening has evolved from a simple report to a management tool used for critical decision making. What used to be a labor-intensive task performed with the help of small, regionally dispersed service providers has transformed into a program marked by software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions, real-time management dashboards and integration capabilities with other HR and corporate systems.

But how is background screening actually used in organizations today? What are the practices, trends and strategies that are impacting human resources professionals, employees and the companies for which they work?

HireRight's "Background Screening Benchmarking Report" sought to answer these questions. The report was based on an online survey consisting of 70 questions and queried more than 1,400 executives, managers and administrators in HR and other screening-related functions, from organizations of many sizes, industries and geographic regions.

The Not-So-Bleak Hiring Picture
According to the report, the top business challenges facing organizations today are cost cutting and compliance, which isn't extremely surprising. What may be more unexpected, however, is that 80 percent of the organizations surveyed expect their workforce to grow or remain similarly sized in the next year. The continued emphasis on talent clearly influences the top challenges that hiring and HR professionals anticipate in 2010, which include:

• Attracting and retaining experienced workers.
• Managing changes in workforce size.
• Transferring knowledge among employees.

So, while the economic downturn may have temporarily affected organizations, the majority of them continued planning near-term initiatives that evolved their employment screening programs.

One of the key strategic initiatives planned by organizations that participated in the study is a review of employee screening standards. Additionally, many of the companies surveyed plan to evaluate applicant tracking systems (ATS) in 2010. A significant number of those reviewing ATS and those that already employ the technology plan to integrate their employment screening into the ATS or other processes. Such integration in many cases allows single sign-on, significantly reduced redundancy and chance for human error, and greater efficiency. Screening integration is a key strategy among hiring professionals looking to do more with less.

The Nuts and Bolts
Ninety-two percent of those surveyed perform some kind of background screening. Logically, most companies (77 percent) task their HR department with determining background screening policy and performing the screening tasks, working with a screening provider in many cases. The most popular structure for implementing a screening program is the centralized model, as opposed to giving distributed screening responsibility to local offices. A central point of responsibility assures greater consistency in the application of screening policies.

---

 

---