Background checks’ importance keeps increasing as Australia embraces a service-based industry. It is already known that the tertiary sector is a great employee generator. Everything is fine until it goes to employee screening.

Hiring the right candidate for a job is a challenge for a business, irrespective of size and sector. The companies conduct an extensive process called background screening, where the employers check different aspects of the employment to ensure the company’s safety, security, and goodwill.

Do you intend to hire new people in your business? You need to know the nitty-gritty of background screenings. You need to have a clear idea of background screening and the new emerging trends associated with it; let’s try to understand it here in detail.

Modern-Day Employee Background Screening Trends

With the passage of time, the Australian services sectors and other stakeholders are trying to bring change within their system so that they keep on redefining employee checks.

For example, the entire checking process got frozen due to pandemic stagnation. This system reinforced a need for software-based screening. Here the prospective employee keen to enter the services in the country can do the screening themselves.

The ANCC national police checks have their own platform, which facilitates an individual doing the screening themselves. This can be a trend. But there are more such trends, and we will know them all. But first, let us brush up on the basics for the convenience of the new readers.

What Is An Employee Background Check?

The employee background screening is a pre-employment screening that an individual passes through before he/she gets selected by an organization in Australia. It provides an opportunity for the employer to go thoroughly into the employee’s education, criminal record, and employment history.

Employee screening is a common practice in Australia. According to the Privacy Act, the criminal history of an individual is quite sensitive information. Therefore employers must take permission from the employee before they know about these details.

Why Conduct An Employee Background Check?

Every business entity wants the safety, security, and well-being of its business and its employees. Therefore, they are always vigilant about it. So employers need to be more than sure about an individual when they select him/her in their organization.

So you can understand that the three main reasons for conducting an employee background check are the health of the employees, reducing instant thefts in a company, and finally, maintaining the reputation of the business.

Apart from this, there are also some other reasons why employee background checks are important. Firstly, they can avoid the cost of training as they will only hire the workers who are capable of handling the operations.

Secondly, it provides the opportunity to hire the right people at the right time in the organization. Criminal history and history of violence are crucial and sensitive information that a company must look into properly before selecting an individual. This is how they can offer you the best help.

Types Of Employee Background Checks

Different types of Employee background checks come under discussion, and they include:

• Police Check;
• Working with Children Check;
• Reference Check;
• Qualification Check;
• Medical Screening;
• Credit History Check;
• Academic Achievements Check;
• Social Media Checks;
• Adverse Financial History Checks; and
• Civil Checks.

Now The Trends

Here we discuss some of the trends that governed employee screening during this particular phase. We discuss these things in detail.

1. Experience Of The Candidate

During the COVID-19 stagnation, the entire flow of checks got terribly disrupted because the world was locked to their rooms and offices, working in a Work-from-home mode.

In response to the exigency, the companies tried their level best to smooth the candidate experience. Accurate screening led to increasing unrest between both parties (the employers and the employees). It was observed that the employers turned down the offer because of the bad experience.

2. Verification Of Identify

Identify verification went on to become a priority in the entire hiring process as the recruitment during the lockdown was carried out online. Hering took place without meeting the candidate physically.

Now that’s awkward, to say the least. Shifting to remote work and screening candidates worsened the employees’ experience. It resulted in work disruption and a waste of resources. Therefore, identity verification emerged as a vital aspect of the overall employee screening process.

3. Flexible Workforce

During the Covid 19, the companies suffered a shortfall in employees. It terribly hampered the productivity of the company. Therefore the management of the organizations was focussed mainly on the uncertainty and other ways of mitigating the shortfall in the number of employees.

Now that the entire world is coming to normalcy, the human resource and development of the organizations are planning to incorporate a new set of employees into the chain (Contingent labor) to meet the shortfall.

On the other hand, employees are looking for companies that offer flexible work schedules during the pandemic. This was a rising trend.

4. Are You Vaccinated?

As some companies intended to start their operations after the claustrophobic pandemic, they wanted to be sure that the employees returning to the workplace were properly vaccinated.

There emerged the need for a proper tool to track vaccination status. Employers can take the help of the organizations like Sterling. They have to proper tools and technology to mitigate the issues on behalf of the employer with high accuracy and professionalism.

5. 2020 Trends

The companies are looking to optimize whistleblower protection laws. The new laws and regulations must have to be complied with by the organization. They safeguard organizations against white-collar crimes.

Keeping the fears of the devastating bushfire in Australia, the companies can shift the summer from the existing month to March or April. We bring it here into the discussion because it is essential to employee welfare. It also comes under the flexibility of workplace laws and regulations.

Putting The Discussion To A Close

The police check framework that exists in Australia has been highly successful. It works like a filter for employers to hire the right employees. Even the new trends are eying reforms and evolutions in employee selection policy.