As much as you want to believe that your employees and candidates for employment are completely trustworthy, applicants rarely tell all and they don’t always speak the truth. Many surveys and studies confirm that a high percentage of personal applications contain less than truthful statements and false claims, whether they are pertaining to their educational credentials or their employment history. These patterns create enormous risks for employers and businesses as they often lead to unwanted terminations (high turnover) and even legal liability. This is where corporate security investigations come to play. Investing in security background investigation right before on-boarding is a small price to pay, considering the negative impacts of not conducting in-depth pre-employment background checking:
Replacing any skilled and experienced employee is a costly endeavor that usually amounts to at least 50 percent of that particular individual’s annual wage in turn-over costs—including costs relating to advanced training, specialization, and extensive experience building for replacement hires. These expenses can better be illustrated by the following costs and business disruptions:
- Loss of overall productivity while a particular position or job is vacant
- Loss of productivity from dependent or related jobs
- Cost of management effort in recruiting, selecting, and interviewing new candidates; and
- Loss of productivity as the replacement worker gains effectiveness and learns duties
Corporate security investigations in the form of background checking during the pre-employment process is a critical aspect of business risk management. Not only does this process reduce turnover—it also ensures constant productivity while reducing legal liability as a result of bad hires. Educational and employment verification and criminal background searches provide employers with essential information and ensure your due diligence as an employer, which is critical if you wish to achieve high employment retention rates. Federal laws and state regulations dictate the type and extent of security background investigation that you need to perform on your candidate employees. These regulations depend, to a certain degree, on the nature of employment being sought. Deeper investigations are permitted for high integrity risk positions as well as for jobs involving public risks.
A negligent hire can be extremely costly to a business and its implications are not only severe but potentially long-lasting. By hiring a private investigation firm to handle our corporate security investigations, you ensure proper due diligence and prove a great degree of employer responsibility, particularly in your hiring process. Your primary goal for investing in security background investigation should be to ensure good hires and retain experienced, trustworthy, skilled, ethical, and productive employees.
