Background Check Risks
The employee background check is extremely sensitive HR process. It is a part of the recruitment process and it has the highest risks after the job interview. During the job interview, anyone can ask an illegal question. The background check can damage the reputation of the company on the job market. Even worse, the job applicant can sue the company for not meeting the legal requirements.
The employee background check can be a potential legal issue for the company. The company lawyers have to be closely attached to the design of the background check process to ensure compliance with the local law.
Many countries protect the privacy of citizens. In such a complicated environment, it is not easy to implement the background check process. The potential employee has to sign many forms to be background checked. The company has to clearly describe the process of background checking. It has to clearly describe the outcomes from the process and how the decision about the background check works.
The background check has to be as objective as possible. The background check should not consider the personal views of former managers and colleagues. They should not act as the main source of information. The objective of the background check is to confirm the content of the job resume. It is not the process of references collecting.
The employee background check cannot be designed to collect as many data as possible. It has to be designed to collect a limited number of personal data to provide the certainty about the job candidate. This is extremely crucial. In many cases, the employer does not need to use the background check process. The trust to the HR Recruiters is acceptable. They can check the basic information about the job candidate from the documents collected during the job interviews.
The team designing the background check has to identify the key and risky job positions to be screened in the process. The rest should be left without any external background checking. The Internal Risk Department prefers the most complex background check solution. HR has to protect the data privacy of job applicants. The healthy positive conflict usually brings the sustainable solution.
The background check process has to be strictly described and followed. HR employees have to follow steps, and they cannot ignore the legal and compliance requirements. The same rules have to be applied to the external supplier of the background check process. They have to contact just the allowed people from the job candidate. They cannot bring any creativity to the process. The documentation has to be shred after the process is finished. The process cannot contain any surprise.