The COVID-19 pandemic has led to global unrest and affected thousands of lives around the world. And there is no denying that the business world has been the hardest hit due to the pandemic. Organizations are trying to adapt to the new normal as they plan their strategies to move ahead.
Additionally, recruiting qualified workers in important sectors like transport, retail, and healthcare, among others, has become more challenging than ever.
So, how are background verification companies faring under this situation? Are pre-employment background checks still going on as dedicatedly as ever? Let us delve deeper to find out.
The Major Benefits Associated With Pre-Employment Background Check
Before moving on to the challenges of pre-employment background screening during the pandemic, let’s see why it’s so important. One of the most significant advantages of pre-employment background screening is that it promotes quality hiring and eliminates the chances of negligence in the process. After all, companies are responsible for the output of their employees.
Thus, hiring anyone who is not at par with the level of work the company needs can damage its reputation. Background verification helps us know about a candidate’s previous employment history, accomplishment records, academic performance, and more. So, it offers detailed insights into the approach to work and their behaviour.
Common background checks include professional reference verification, address verification, employment verification, educational qualifications, and identity verification. Employee background verification services use the references given by the candidates to validate these details.
Background Screening during the COVID-19 : The Hurdles To Cross
As most organisations have resorted to remote working, the challenges to hiring have increased manifold. For instance, companies are unable to organise face-to-face interviews in the current scenario. The seasoned recruiters could gauge a lot from even the body language of the employees.
As a result, the employers are extra cautious and careful, and they’re focusing keenly on the applicants’ skills before hiring them. Background screening is one of the major challenges faced by organisations during this time. Limited resources and lockdowns are making it difficult for organisations to conduct background screening before hiring new employees.
The COVID-19 pandemic has also increased the competition between companies. Since most companies have gone online now and are jostling to get the attention of their targeted audience, there is no scope to be complacent. Companies need employees who believe in their goals and are willing to add to and improve the existing culture.
At the end of the day, an employee with a criminal record or any work-related misconduct is not good for the company’s values.
Major Challenges Faced By Most Employee Background Verification Services
The pandemic has proved to be a major hurdle for employee background verification companies. Even these companies have shifted to a work-from-home mode, and they aren’t able to carry out physical background screening and checks.
For instance, it helps to do a physical examination in case of address verification. However, they are still trying to keep up the level of accuracy and precision they could achieve during the pre-COVID-19 era.
Now, let’s take a look at the major challenges that employee background verification services are facing.
- Criminal and Civil Records
Public service organisations and other government departments are tied up with their COVID-19 duties. With these new responsibilities, it is pretty challenging to get timely and precise information about a probable candidate.
- Employment Verification
As the organisations switch to the remote working model, there are major delays in sourcing information related to previous employment. Also, getting details about their performance in the earlier roles, experience, and more from the previous employer is difficult.
- Education Verification
Most of the educational institutions are non-operational. So, getting access to these details is a little challenging. Employee background verification services nowadays use advanced technologies to ensure they can get a candidate’s academic details.
- Courthouse Closures
The COVID-19 restrictions made it hard to gain access to courthouse records and closures.
COVID-19 might have changed the scenario completely, but it has also increased the awareness about the significance of employee background verification. Also, it would be wrong to assume that employee background verification companies have stopped functioning because of the glitches mentioned above.
The top companies have increased their use of advanced technology and are still dedicated to running all the functions discussed above. After all, employee background verification is something that’s important for every organisation at all times, even during the current pandemic.
Wrapping up
The top background verification companies in the world are still holding their ground and offering quality services to the clients. And AuthBridge is the name of reckoning in that regard. We have served top names across industries before the pandemic, and we continue to do so even now. We are eager to add you to our client list, as well!
