Mumbai, Kalpesh Desai, Screen Facts, 11th Sept 07, www.screenfacts.com


There are a number of factors / boundaries/Criteria’s which govern designing of good background screening program

Background Screening Criteria’s will typically fall under two broad heads
1)       General Criteria’s
2)       Specific Criteria’s

Most of General criteria’s are interrelated and interdependent.

GENERAL CRITERIAS
General Criteria’s are common across industry segments and can be broken up as
a)       Cost
b)       Turn around Time
c)       Hierarchy within Management Structure
d)       Geographical spread of the Business

Cost is a factor as every function/dept within a firm has to respect cost dictates. Overshoot has a direct impact on the bottom line. Cost budget approved at the start as part of HR budget may involve deciding what percentage of employees will need to screened, what should be the outer limit in terms of cost, what checks can be covered, what can be avoided. Cost as a criteria will straddle and govern other criteria’s which make up the background checks including % of employees ( entire staff or % within a particular band or entire function etc), type of checks, (Education, Employment, Criminal, Credit, References, General background, databases, Drug test etc),mode of execution (telephonic, written, verbal, email, Physical inspection, Chemical inspection).

The turn around time is critical to deciding on the nature of checks which will mitigate risk as large TAT may not be beneficial for an organization. In many a cases wherein all checks have to be done before a candidate comes on board, it will govern the no of checks, type of checks & mode of execution of these checks

Hierarchy within an organization will influence the nature of check which may be required for each hierarchy. The checks required at Top Management will be different from that required for a Management Trainee.

Geographical spread of business will influence nature of checks; a geography traditionally known for universities of bad repute would warrant a more stringent education check and that too for all 100% of employees working in the said geography

SPECIFIC CRITERIAS
Specific criteria’s are nothing but factors which are peculiar to an Industry. For e.g. Banking , Financial Services company is exposed to the risk of Money Laundering, hence the Sales teams which are sourcing these accounts needs to be impeccable and this will warrant a very tight screening. This particular segment of employees in this Industry will fall under the High risk cadre as compared to others in the same organization. A similar case is that of employees working in Phone Banking units who have access to all customer information. In case of sales employees of a Retail store, they will fall under Medium risk. In case of Retail Chain/Store it is the employees in Purchase Dept, Quality Control & Inspection & Logistics who will fall under High risk cadre.

In addition, specific factors such as outcome of fraud/unprofessional behavior committed by an employee will determine nature of checks & extent of coverage.

For e.g., if a money laundering fraud is traced back during investigation to a sales person who turned a nelsons eye when following “KNOW YOUR CUSTOMER NORMS”. Further investigations also reveal that his previous employment record was bad or his education record was fake or his credit history was not acceptable.

In this case not screening a High risk employee will cost the Financial Services Company BAD REPUTATION, REGULATORY STRICTURES, which can also result in cancellation of license to do business & MONETARY FINES directly impacting the firm’s bottom line.

In case of retail store, the worst outcome will be a few customers not visiting the store again, if there was mis-selling done by a particular sales person whose credentials when checked later turn out to be fraudulent.

Firms must do an Internal Risk assessment based on the above and then design a Background Screening Plan.

For e.g. for a Bank
Can cover
a)       Credit History Check
b)       Education Check
c)       Previous employment check
d)       Personal reference check
e)       General Background Check
f)       Criminal Background Check
g)       Drug Test

All the above checks can be used for a Sales person but for somebody in Operations, all above checks are not required.