Employee background checks have been a vital recruitment tool for decades now. Typically conducted via the disclosure and barring service in the UK, they’re both a regulatory requirement for many positions, and a way of protecting your business from those with potentially criminal intentions. If you’re unsure whether your business needs to use employee background checks or not, here are three prime reasons why you should never skip them.
Regulatory compliance
With DBS checks, both the standard and enhanced checks are regulated. This means that when they are used, they’re not some optional extra check – they’re strictly required by law for a wide range of positions. The standard check, which looks for both spent and unspent criminal convictions, warnings, and reprimands, is typically required for positions that have extensive access to sensitive information, such as those in the legal and financial professions.
The enhanced check, which also includes any information that the local police department considers relevant to the position being applied for, is often a requirement for positions that have regular, unsupervised contact with children and sensitive adults, such as healthcare and childcare roles.
Protecting your brand
Your brand image was likely one of the most difficult parts of your business that you had to build. It’s also one of the most delicate elements of business management, and it’s important to take every measure available to you in this area.
Conducting employee background checks with a trusted provider can be a great tool to limit brand damage. You can quickly identify anyone who’s lied in their application about their criminal background, decreasing the probability that you bring someone into your business who could damage your brand.
Encourage a positive work environment
Aside from your legal obligations and brand management concerns, employee background checks are extremely helpful when it comes to creating a positive work environment. If people feel safe in the workplace, knowing that they aren’t working with people with potentially unsavoury histories, they’re more likely to do a good job.
You can help to reduce turnover rates, and help people to feel that their employer cares about their wellbeing. It’s also likely that if someone lies about their criminal history, they’re also lying about other aspects of their past. In this sense, employee background checks are a more generally useful recruitment tool that can help narrow down the potential pool of candidates.
Whether or not you need to conduct an employee background check will depend to a certain degree on the role that you’re hiring for, and the nature of your business. In some cases, they can be of limited utility; however, in many cases, they can be absolutely essential.
From a practical perspective, they help to ensure that you protect your brand, and can be an invaluable recruitment tool. If your business is regulated, then they’re more than just useful – they’re also a legal requirement. It’s important to consult with a background check provider, to see which kind of check would be most appropriate for the vacancy you’re looking to fill.
