Factors to Consider When Doing a Back Ground Check
Doing a back ground check before hiring staff has become essential. This is especially true for digitised procedures, where we can be unsure what an employee is up to until after the event. Hiring people we trust is the only defence against this. The only way to be certain is to do a thorough back ground check.
Australian Workplace Fraud On the Increase
Australian workplace fraud by employees now costs the country billions every year. It makes sense the perpetrators were trusted people. How else could they get it right? Moreover, KPMG found in 2013 that 75% of all fraud was by insiders, and 47% due to poor to non-existent management systems. Thus good human resource management should include implementing a pre-hire, back ground check policy.
How Reliable are Back Ground Checks? Do They Work
While we cannot promise that back ground checks eliminate workplace fraud, they do bring down the likelihood. As management guru Peter Drucker said, ‘what gets managed, gets done and gets improved’. Having a back ground check policy sharpens the employer’s lens because they confront reality, as opposed to what they hope to find. There is a wealth of information in government records, employment histories, qualification data bases, and judgements.
Three Ways in Which a Background Check Benefits Employers
- 1 A dubious job applicant is fairly likely to lose interest, once they sense the employer is checking them out. The last thing they want is opening an old case of workplace fraud, they thought had gone cold forever.
- 2 Sifting through job applicants carefully means we ‘drill down’ deeper into their past, and engage better with their experience and skills. This increases the likelihood of choosing someone who makes a genuine contribution to profitability, and company culture.
- 3 The first two benefits combine to lower the actual amount of employee misconduct. By hiring in a measured fashion, we reduce the probability of theft, bad customer relations, and financial losses.
Our back ground check model is merely an extension of hiring people with the right attributes and skills for the role. All we are doing is highlighting character traits of diligence, honesty, and loyalty, or the lack thereof.
The success of any back ground check depends on how well we apply the ‘don’t tell me, show me’ principle. QLD Covert Investigations employs experts who do this for a living. Call 1300 553 788 to benefit from their experience in confidence.
