IMPORTANCE OF EMPLOYEE BACKGROUND CHECKS – PRE ENROLMENT ACTIVITY
BUSINESS TRENDS
1. Whenever, a franchisee or an employee is employed or hired, most of the business have very elaborate mechanisms to carry out the following as part of background checks :-
(a) Address verification.
(b) Educational background verification.
(c) Past employment verification.
(d) last salary drawn verification.
(e) Character verification.
2. However, it has been noticed that despite elaborate listing of related processes, a minor slip up somewhere, by design or default, can have catastrophic effect on the business as would be seen in understated issues.
IGNORANCE OF BASIC COMMON SENSE CHECKS
3. Address Verification – Generally it is based on the documents submitted by the perspective candidate in terms either a driving license, pass port, electricity bill, voter card, PAN card etc. However, what is generally ignored that the addresses contained in these documents were correct (believed to be correct) at the point of time at which these documents were issued. WHAT IN CASE THE PERSPECTIVE CANDIDATE HAS CHANGED HIS RESIDENCE SUBSEQUENT TO ISSUE OF THESE DOCUMENTS ? We in business, land up verifying unreliable document ??
4. Remedy lies in the following :-
(a) Photocopies should be accepted only when accompanied by originals and be certified on copy with endorsement “ORIGINAL SEEN AND VERIFIED BY Mr / Ms ………….ON ……..(Date)” and be duly signed by the person verifying the same.
(b) Verify the photograph of the perspective candidate who is being interviewed with the ones which have been affixed on his address documents.
(c) Obtain an undertaking from the perspective employee that he is currently staying at the address about which he is producing a document. In case of change, ask for police verification or some other certification suiting the legal requirement.
(b) In case of employee being hired for critical positions, it would be better if physical checks could be carried out to verify the address.
5. Educational Background - Can a situation be imagined where in a person being hired is not the one who finally joins the company or not the one having the requisite qualifications? THERE HAVE BEEN CASES OF THIS NATURE TOO. Under the current procedures, all important educational certificates from reputed institutions carry a photograph of the student, but, every institute is not doing the same.
6. Remedy lies in cross checking the details with institute whose certificate is being produced as testimony to educational qualifications. Alternatively, other technical details can be cross checked from other related documents like parentage, date of birth, mother’s name etc. Few questions during the interview can lead to detection fraudulent cases.
7. In case of employee having a permanent address at far away place, the verification can be done by sending an ‘Acknowledgement Due’ Registered letter on the indicated address through postal department or through a courier company with instructions to produce proof of delivery to concerned HR team. If that is not possible, then tele verification based on land line number can also be made.
8. In one of the investigated case, it emerged that younger sister was working while the elder one was interviewed and her (elder sister’s) educational records were held with enrolment team. In another case, it was found that the output of employee did not match the job profile and it emerged that he had produced forged educational records.
9. Banking Details (A Case Study). A case was detected wherein an employee (Say Mr Suresh, of current employer but name changed) had produced his salary account, proof of address and company identity to some other bank stating that he is working with that company. Later this employee obtained huge loan and did not repay installments. What happened was that during the process of obtaining loan, he obtained required certificates from his employer. After obtaining this loan, the employee resigned from his current service. On noticing default, the banker which granted him loan approached his known address and were horrified to find that he never stayed there. Later the bank approached the previous employer and it got confirmed that the employer had verified his address on the basis of details mentioned in the PHOTOCOPIES of the following documents :-
(a) Telephone bill.
(b) Driving License.
(c) Ration Card.
10. Since all of the above documents produced by employee at the time of enrollment were PHOTOCOPIES and no one in the process of enrolment thought it fit to examine the original - ALL TURNED OUT TO BE FORGED DOCUMENTS.
11. Experience Verification. It has been noticed with some degree of satisfaction that lot of companies maintain brief record of employee personal and performance data permanently in the system. Such data can help businesses by referring to this data in case such query comes up from future employer of the employee. This system, if adopted across the board by all business, will make all businesses a healthy place to work in, without business heads worrying of enrolment of fraudsters.
1. Whenever, a franchisee or an employee is employed or hired, most of the business have very elaborate mechanisms to carry out the following as part of background checks :-
(a) Address verification.
(b) Educational background verification.
(c) Past employment verification.
(d) last salary drawn verification.
(e) Character verification.
2. However, it has been noticed that despite elaborate listing of related processes, a minor slip up somewhere, by design or default, can have catastrophic effect on the business as would be seen in understated issues.
IGNORANCE OF BASIC COMMON SENSE CHECKS
3. Address Verification – Generally it is based on the documents submitted by the perspective candidate in terms either a driving license, pass port, electricity bill, voter card, PAN card etc. However, what is generally ignored that the addresses contained in these documents were correct (believed to be correct) at the point of time at which these documents were issued. WHAT IN CASE THE PERSPECTIVE CANDIDATE HAS CHANGED HIS RESIDENCE SUBSEQUENT TO ISSUE OF THESE DOCUMENTS ? We in business, land up verifying unreliable document ??
4. Remedy lies in the following :-
(a) Photocopies should be accepted only when accompanied by originals and be certified on copy with endorsement “ORIGINAL SEEN AND VERIFIED BY Mr / Ms ………….ON ……..(Date)” and be duly signed by the person verifying the same.
(b) Verify the photograph of the perspective candidate who is being interviewed with the ones which have been affixed on his address documents.
(c) Obtain an undertaking from the perspective employee that he is currently staying at the address about which he is producing a document. In case of change, ask for police verification or some other certification suiting the legal requirement.
(b) In case of employee being hired for critical positions, it would be better if physical checks could be carried out to verify the address.
5. Educational Background - Can a situation be imagined where in a person being hired is not the one who finally joins the company or not the one having the requisite qualifications? THERE HAVE BEEN CASES OF THIS NATURE TOO. Under the current procedures, all important educational certificates from reputed institutions carry a photograph of the student, but, every institute is not doing the same.
6. Remedy lies in cross checking the details with institute whose certificate is being produced as testimony to educational qualifications. Alternatively, other technical details can be cross checked from other related documents like parentage, date of birth, mother’s name etc. Few questions during the interview can lead to detection fraudulent cases.
7. In case of employee having a permanent address at far away place, the verification can be done by sending an ‘Acknowledgement Due’ Registered letter on the indicated address through postal department or through a courier company with instructions to produce proof of delivery to concerned HR team. If that is not possible, then tele verification based on land line number can also be made.
8. In one of the investigated case, it emerged that younger sister was working while the elder one was interviewed and her (elder sister’s) educational records were held with enrolment team. In another case, it was found that the output of employee did not match the job profile and it emerged that he had produced forged educational records.
9. Banking Details (A Case Study). A case was detected wherein an employee (Say Mr Suresh, of current employer but name changed) had produced his salary account, proof of address and company identity to some other bank stating that he is working with that company. Later this employee obtained huge loan and did not repay installments. What happened was that during the process of obtaining loan, he obtained required certificates from his employer. After obtaining this loan, the employee resigned from his current service. On noticing default, the banker which granted him loan approached his known address and were horrified to find that he never stayed there. Later the bank approached the previous employer and it got confirmed that the employer had verified his address on the basis of details mentioned in the PHOTOCOPIES of the following documents :-
(a) Telephone bill.
(b) Driving License.
(c) Ration Card.
10. Since all of the above documents produced by employee at the time of enrollment were PHOTOCOPIES and no one in the process of enrolment thought it fit to examine the original - ALL TURNED OUT TO BE FORGED DOCUMENTS.
11. Experience Verification. It has been noticed with some degree of satisfaction that lot of companies maintain brief record of employee personal and performance data permanently in the system. Such data can help businesses by referring to this data in case such query comes up from future employer of the employee. This system, if adopted across the board by all business, will make all businesses a healthy place to work in, without business heads worrying of enrolment of fraudsters.
Thank you for helping people get the information they need. Great stuff as usual. Keep up the great work!!!
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Worth reading!!! List Of Background Verification Companies In India
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