July 25th, 2017 | Debbie Lamb, Sterling Talent Solutions

Overcoming Background Screening Challenges

The HR world is constantly evolving. The speakers, vendors and attendees at SHRM17 in New Orleans were shown ways to improve the human resources experience from recruiting through onboarding to employee appreciation. Employment background screening has become a vital part of the HR process giving employers the information they require to hire the best candidates for their organizations. The background screening industry is complicated and the rules and regulations are constantly changing. Martin Berman-Gorvine of Bloomberg BNA sat down with background screening industry experts at SHRM17 including Sterling CEO, Clare Hart. They discussed the major issues background screening companies are coming across including the everyday challenge of running background checks, potential liability issues under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and legislative changes due to “Ban the Box” laws and recreational and medicinal legalization of marijuana.

Challenges for Background Screening

Employment background screening is a highly regulated industry. Screening companies must be compliant with FCRA laws, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) rulings as well as various state, county and city regulations. Clare Hart stated, “To stay legally compliant, the first thing employers should do is check with their counsel.” Clare agreed that being compliant is one of three major challenges for background screening, “The three major challenges with applicant screening are access to quality and accurate checks, compliance and turnaround time. And the first two should never be sacrificed to the third.” Delays in the screening process could be due to court systems still using manual record keeping or international background screening checks.

Background Screening Trends

These challenges are reflected in Sterling’s recently released Background Screening Trends & Best Practices Report 2017. Sterling recently surveyed 500+ US-based employers in 33 industries about their use of background screening to gain key insights into emerging trends, technology and more. The 2017 Background Screening Trends & Best Practices Report uncovers details how HR professionals think about components of the hiring process and how they relate to the background screening industry, how emerging technology is impacting the candidate experience and emerging trends in employment background screening.  

Companies do find immense value in background screening. According to our survey respondents, 80% found that background checks uncover issues/information that wouldn’t have been found otherwise. The survey found that for most survey respondents, 2017 is about getting new hires in the door quickly and efficiently with quality information for informed hiring decisions. Nearly half of employers surveyed (45%) said their biggest challenge was reducing the time to hire while 41% said it was improving the background screening process efficiently and 36% said improving the quality of information they had received to make their hiring decisions.

Sterling, the world’s largest background screening provider, provides hiring peace of mind by delivery a simpler, smarter background screening and onboarding experience for employers worldwide. Find out more insight about the challenges to the background screening in Martin Berman-Gorvine’s article below.

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