Why undertake a Pre-employment Screening programme?

The simplest reason is that time and time again research tells us that people will make untrue claims in order to obtain employment. While a little ‘embellishment’ may be accepted here and there, an organisation is quite simply most at risk from its own employees therefore you need to know who is working for you.

The media remind us all too often also of the more unfortunate consequences of recruiting the wrong person.

Some industries require that pre-employment screening be undertaken to meet the needs of that particular industry. These include regulated industries such as Financial Services and Security while anyone who works with children or vulnerable adults must also be screened.

Outside of legal mandates, industry regulations and corporate governance, there are a number of benefits to an organisation from implementing a PES programme while those organisations that don’t can leave themselves exposed to risk in their recruitment activity.

Key benefits include:

Industry best practice in recruitment

Pre-employment Screening will become a standard part of recruitment practice in the future so any organisation that is not currently mandated to perform some kind of security screening will be undertaking ‘Best Practice’ in their recruitment activity.

A pre-employment screening service is also relatively inexpensive compared to the wider costs of recruiting a single individual while use of it matches your recruitment activity so there are no fixed costs to bear and no unnecessary time taken up by your HR staff in wandering around the minefield of how to go about screening someone.

Having a PES programme in place will also deter many unscrupulous applicants from applying in the first place.

Maximising the competitive position of the organisation

Leading companies seek to maintain their position by hiring the best candidates available based on their genuine experience and qualifications. A PES programme would therefore:

• Reduce the negative impacts on productivity and morale of mis-hiring
• Minimise the financial costs of increased staff turnover and re-recruitment service arising from mis-hiring
• Minimise the negative impacts of poor customer service arising from mis-hiring
• Verify that a candidate does not have a conflict of interest

To confirm the claims made by prospective employees in order to ensure safety and security in the work environment for the Company and its employees

Most Security breaches occur from within an organisation. A PES programme will help to minimise the risk of:

• Loss or damage of company property and assets
• Harm to other employees
• Damage to corporate reputation through adverse activity