How To Pick The Best Background Service As A Small Business

In modern times, hiring an employee is an arduous task that's a serious sink for both time and money (https://smallbusiness.com/employees/background-screening-job-candidate/).

However, few people can deny that hiring the right people every step of the way is one of the prerequisites for the success of any business. What sort of people a business has onboard impacts the working process, team cohesion, company culture and communication, and ultimately – the product, the customer, and the value of the business' brand and it's bottom line. Hiring practices pay off in both the short term and the long term. Good hiring practices give tangible results, sometimes immediately, while bad ones tend to cost the hiring company about a third of the employee's annual earnings (https://www.hrexchangenetwork.com/hr-talent-acquisition/articles/poor-hi....).

Screening potential hires properly is one of those all-important hiring practices that every business should adopt. Small, family-owned businesses that employ members of the local community may not need to implement such procedures when dealing with candidates who are personal friends or relatives to the owner. In pretty much every other situation imaginable, screenings are essential for the vetting of potential employees.

Depending on the scope and size of the business, the vetting process could be in the hands of the business owner, a manager, or fall under the jurisdiction of a whole team of human resources experts. Once all the applications have gone through a suitable number of sieves and a candidate that appears promising has been found, the person or people responsible for the hiring may try to perform the necessary background checks on their own, or leave this sort of time-consuming and arduous work to professionals, such as uCheck - Employee Background Checks (https://www.ucheck.co.uk/).

So what should businesses look for when choosing a background checks company?

The Company’s Qualifications and Reputation
The company that performs the employee screenings and background checks must abide by all the legislation of the country in which it operates. Most countries in the world lack legislative cohesion when it comes to employment screening. Employers would do well to ensure that the company they plan on using is accredited to provide the screenings they need. For instance, in the US, this means that the company must be FCRA compliant.

The company performing the screenings should be a proven business that is in good standing with its clients. Client reviews, commentary and recommendations of the services rendered by an agency can help the employer decide if the service that agency provides is right for their needs. An employer looking for an agency to perform a background check should take the time to first perform a background check on the company.

Ideally, the company that the employer uses to perform background checks should have experience serving the employer's particular industry. This experience could make communication with the company smoother and make the company's job easier. However, if the company itself is solid, even a lack of experience in the employer's particular field should not be a dealbreaker. Most background checkers have a habit of advertising what industries they serve vigorously.

The Company’s Business Practices
Accuracy is also of paramount importance when it comes to background screenings. The company doing the background checks should be able to provide concise but detailed background reports that feature all the relevant facts on the researched subjects.

Any company should be transparent in its practices and use reliable sources for its information. The level of transparency when it comes to public records varies wildly from country to country, and the availability of information may also vary greatly. Language and legal barriers can also complicate the screening process. Regardless of those difficulties, a good background screening company should be able to provide information on the subject that it is screening, as well as reliable sources for that information.

The company running background checks for potential employees should also be expedient in the execution of its task, but this should not come at the cost of its diligence. Many companies advertise themselves on their fast work; however, prompt execution becomes entirely irrelevant if it comes at the cost of missing out on crucial details. The results such work delivers may end up useless for, or even worse – detrimental to the employer. On the flip side of the coin, in today's world of tight deadlines, an employer can't afford to waste too much time on research.

Flexibility is also a serious consideration when choosing a background checker. Employers usually have a specific list of checks that they need the company to perform. The best background screening companies are able to provide all the details requested by the employer. Criminal records and sex offender registries are all par for the course, but ideally, a company should be able to perform all sorts of other checks, such as health monitoring, drug tests, and social media reviews.

The last bit may seem inconsequential from a business perspective, but with the advent of the age of social media, checking a potential employee's online presence has become absolutely necessary. Doing so can give an employer valuable insight into the person they are considering adding to the company. Certain companies may not want to associate their brands with particular types of controversial individuals, while others may use social media to discover that a candidate has undisclosed qualities they may put to good use.

Being tech-savvy is a necessary requirement for any company nowadays, and the ones performing background checks are no exception. Judging a book by its cover may be wrong, but a company's presentation shows a lot about the company itself. If a company doesn't have an online portal or adequate customer support, it probably isn't worth a serious employer's custom.

The Company’s Payment Rates
Then there's the monetary question. Ideally, a proper screening should not break the bank. However, employers should keep in mind that specific bits of information may prove to be costly to gather and report. This is especially true for details related to obscure or poorly documented subjects, or in instances where fees need to be paid to gain access to information.