The Importance of Comprehensive Background Screening

As humans, we’re constantly applying some risk management strategy to our daily lives. In fact, at every second of the day, we’re given the opportunity to mitigate risk. For some, that might look like eating a healthy meal to invest in a healthy future or saying no to a cigarette to prevent lung disease. For others, it might mean taking a job with stable pay to minimize financial risk or brushing up on skills and learning new technologies to reduce the risk of losing a job in the future. 

Humans are well-practiced in risk management—it’s how we stay alive. It’s also how businesses stay alive. 

Business risk comes in all shapes and sizes, from cybersecurity breaches to customer loss to competitors, but the effect is often identical. Damaged reputation, lost income, customer attrition, strained relationships with stakeholders, and employee turnover are all potential—and probable—outcomes of a crisis. 

That’s why so many companies invest in risk management—to spot and stop threats before they happen, minimize the effect of unavoidable setbacks that will inevitably hit (e.g., a nationwide recession or a worldwide pandemic), and, ultimately, keep the business alive. 

The Most Overlooked Kind of Risk 

Risk management is all about anticipating the risks most likely to come to fruition and creating a defense plan around that analysis that protects the business from all angles. But, what many businesses get wrong is the kind of risk that comes from the inside, from employees themselves. 

A recent IBM study found that insiders carry out 60% of cybersecurity attacks—either maliciously or accidentally (the ratio of which is still up for debate). Another study found that 89% of workers have experienced burnout in the past year, and 40% of workers have left their jobs due to burnout. 

The list goes on. 

It’s called HR risk (or people risk)––and no comprehensive risk management plan is complete without it factored in. In today’s world, businesses need a quality, thorough HR risk management strategy to truly protect themselves from all angles. 

HR risk management focuses on the specific risks employees pose to the business—the ways in which employees are hired and managed throughout their lifecycle and how employees behave in the workplace—to ultimately protect the organization’s operational, financial, and reputational well-being. 

According to the Academy to Innovate HR, the most common areas of HR risk include: 

• Workforce Risks: turnover, employee burnout, lack of employee engagement, workplace harassment, labor relations, remote work, and more
• Employee data management: security breaches and data leaks of sensitive employee data 
• Compliance: adhering to all relevant labor laws, especially around compensation and workplace safety 
• Ethics: engaging in ethical employment practices like equal opportunity hiring, creating a non-discriminatory work environment, ensuring impartial termination procedures, and more
• Learning and Development: ensuring the company is staffed appropriately and has the right skills to achieve business goals
• Compensation and Benefits: creating pay structures that reduce the threat of financial risk (i.e. increasing salaries that fail to motivate the right behavior), talent risk (turnover), and reputational risk (negative attention from investors, customers, or future candidates) 

The #1 Way to Mitigate HR Risk 

One of the most meaningful and effective actions employers can take to limit people-related risk is to hire the right person for the role up front. 

That’s because making a bad hire is expensive. It can cost businesses $17,000 to $240,000 and open the business up to a whole host of other kinds of HR risk, including lowered productivity and morale across the entire team, lost customers, stolen property, a damaged reputation, and more. 

Plus, employers have a legal obligation to avoid bad hires to protect employees and customers. With expensive negligent hiring cases on the rise, it’s in their best interest to seek out the right person for the job. 

Avoiding a bad hire means favoring objectivity over subjectivity in the hiring process and applying more rigor when evaluating a candidate—to find ways to go beyond the interview and the resume to get the real story and facts. Employers across the country have found that comprehensive background screening is the best tool for doing just that—for weeding out prospective high-risk candidates and bringing more structure, standardization, and objectivity to the hiring process. 

Today, over 90% of employers conduct pre-employment background screening. Thirty-eight percent of those companies perform background screening to help minimize the risk of future criminal activity, 27% to fulfill regulatory compliance and limit compliance risk, 17% to ensure the applicants have the right skills for the job, and 6% to protect their brand reputation. 

Why Comprehensive Background Screening Is Effective

Background screenings reveal pertinent information about candidates’ criminal history, identity, employment and education history, credit information, and more so that HR professionals can spot any threats before hiring a candidate. 

Pre-employment screening is a chance to uncover potential dishonesty or misrepresentations from the interview process and to get a complete picture of the candidate before making a decision—in a controlled, bias-free environment. 

Plus, in the face of more distributed work environments (a.k.a. the rise of remote work), it’s becoming more difficult to screen candidates effectively. Still, background screenings help employers bridge that remote hiring gap. 

Consequently, pre-employment background screening helps HR teams maintain a safe and positive work environment and reduces other forms of people risk that could damage the organization’s financial, operational, and reputational well-being.  

For example, employers can check to see if candidates’ certifications are up to date in industries that require them (like healthcare or education) to limit hefty fines and government sanctions, or they can check employment dates and references to ensure that a candidate has the skills necessary to do the job (avoiding skills shortages).

What’s Included In Comprehensive Background Screening  

But, not all background checks are created equal.  While some offer thorough, modern screening for evaluating candidates, others don’t come close to covering all the bases to reduce risk when hiring.  

That’s why most employers turn to a reputable background check service to conduct screening for them––to ensure that all legal requirements are being fulfilled and access fast, accurate, and thorough reports that tell the whole story. 

Here’s what’s included in a comprehensive background screening designed to help businesses mitigate risk: 

Multiple Background Screening Options 

Background screening isn’t simply about criminal history anymore; now, a comprehensive background check involves several additional layers designed to detect threats. The goal is to cast a wide net, get a holistic view of an applicant, and protect you from every angle. A quality, comprehensive solution will include the following list of services, tools, and data: 

• National criminal file search 
• Social Security number trace
• Sex offender criminal search
• County criminal/other public records search 
• Statewide criminal/public records search 
• Federal criminal/public records search
• Driving records and motor vehicle records search
• Employment verification 
• Education verification 
• Credit report
• Professional license verification 
• Drug screening
• International screening services 

Accuracy and Accreditation 

When getting a comprehensive background check, casting a wide net is a start. Still, the data collected isn’t valuable unless it’s accurate—since inaccurate or misleading background checks can lead to liability and legal issues. To ensure the accuracy of results and reduce risk, a background check company will provide access to the most up-to-date and comprehensive court records from all relevant federal, state, and local jurisdictions.

A great way to evaluate whether a service provides accurate results–or not–is by checking the status of its Professional Background Screening Association (PBSA) accreditation. PBSA accreditation is a nationally recognized achievement earned by U.S. consumer reporting agencies that confirms that a background check service complies with all FCRA requirements and recognizes a screening company’s commitment to excellence in information security, legal and compliance, client education, researcher and data standards, verification service standards, and business practices.

Customer Service 

Employment screening is complicated work. The rules and regulations differ from state to state and county to county, and the needs of every business differ, too. There’s no one-size-fits-all when it comes to a background check. That’s why a quality background check service is backed by great customer support—by real people—that can help you navigate the gray areas of employment screening and help you get the most out of a comprehensive background check.

When searching for a background check service, look for a partner that promises integrity, industry experience, innovation, and an unparalleled commitment to their clients at every step. And ensure they have the expertise and resources necessary to navigate state and local laws in your region. 

In today’s hiring environment, where candidates are more deceptive and it’s more difficult to evaluate candidates than ever, HR professionals should ensure that their background screening provider provides all three of the above to reduce hiring risk and ensure that the business is protected from all angles.