We hear a lot about crimes such as identify fraud or fake qualifications and the penalties incurred by the individual – but what about the ramifications for small businesses as employers?
Do your employees hold the required qualifications? And if a worker has broken the law, could they cost your small business big amounts in terms of reputation and money?
An estimated 40 per cent of people lie on their CVs and three out of four employers have caught a lie on a candidate’s CV. It’s for this reason that it’s essential for small businesses to “know your people” from as soon as the onboarding process.
Onboarding is not just about verification and certificates – you must know the background of someone potentially coming into a small business by having confidence in these certifications being correct.
Having people in your business who have lied about their background, or their qualifications is serious, potentially criminal, and can have huge ramifications for the businesses who employed the individual.
A small business can suffer significant brand damage, even if they’re found not to have breached any laws and did the right thing by reporting a crime as soon as they became aware of it. That brand damage can be potentially ongoing and long-lasting and may cost you future business.
With more limited resources in terms of budget and labour, this is another cost small businesses simply cannot afford.
So how do businesses “know their people” effectively?
- Find the fake qualifications first: the internet has enabled a multitude of fake (and often “certified”) diplomas, degrees, and academic transcripts. This means employers should no longer take an academic certificate at face value and must validate qualification claims.
- Perform rigorous background and compliance checks for your entire workforce: this protects not only your customers, but your other staff and the health of your brand as well. Screening techniques include: CV screening (manual or automated); skills assessments and interviewing.
- Use background checks as a screening tool rather than final validation: Most employers see background checks as ‘due diligence’ or a final validation that final-round candidates have the background and skills they claim to possess. They should be done at the start of the employment process.
- Only assess and interview candidates who pass relevant checks: Even with the help of technology, CV screening, skills assessments and interviewing all take time and money. Running checks such as a National Police Check as early in the process as possible will ensure that only verified candidates will progress.
- Remember it comes down to maths: Is the cost of assessing and interviewing potentially dozens of ineligible candidates higher than the cost of screening those candidates out beforehand with background checks? If so, it may make sense to conduct background checks earlier in the process.
- Employee situations change – make sure you keep track: Once you’re 100 per cent sure that your employees are checked and cleared, make sure they stay compliant by performing regular checks and ensuring your systems can support automatic verifications.
Another way small businesses can feel more assured they truly “know their people” is to sign up to an online platform allowing for real-time compliance monitoring of employees.
Whether it’s police or working with children checks, certification, or qualification, all your workers across all your locations can be monitored in one place quickly, and easily.
This allows a business to see in real-time which of its employees need to take action, and when, to remain up-to-date – and in the end saves you both time and money.
