We do a little bit of everything on the ActiveCare Blog. What can we say? We like to take care of our readers and make sure you’re up to date with the latest screening industry knowledge.
ICYMI, here’s a tiny sampling of topics we’ve recently hit on:
Now, we’re ready to go large with Big Business Week. One of the issues big business faces is recruiting and retaining its workforce. There are so many external and internal forces leaning against big business it can seem, at times, like you’re spending more time handling candidate and employee issues than you are focusing on your company’s real task. Turnover can be a real bummer. A revolving door to your human resources department isn’t good for anyone.
Employees leave for a number of reasons, but there are some common themes:
- Career advancement/promotion
- Flexibility/Scheduling
- Poor management
- Money
- Motivation
- Job fit
- Crappy boss
Click here to see a bunch of cool infographics breaking down the stats.
There is one thing you can do, however, that can help you alleviate or at least ameliorate workforce issues: Optimize your screening and hiring processes. That’s fancy industry talk for outsourcing background checks to a third party like Active Screening and creating and following a checklist when you are looking to hire. Here’s our tips for how to do it:
Better Define Your Open Positions – As we learned in this blog post, more descriptive job definitions attract candidates who feel they fit those qualifications, and weed out candidates who don’t. Example: Someone who likes to work independently may not want to apply for a job that stresses lots of “teamwork” or “group projects.”
Have A Plan – Human resources departments across the board are understaffed and overworked. You can make things easier for everyone by having a uniform checklist for hiring. This gives everyone the same game plan and helps your company stay within the confines of the law. We really like the delegation aspect – if the person in charge of one hire falls sick or has vacation coming up or needs to take maternity leave, another HR employee can step right in and know what’s next on the checklist.
Make it Public (Internally) – Send your hiring procedures and checklist to everyone in-house, along with a contact point. That way if a colleague comes across someone who may be a good cultural fit for your company, they know who to contact in HR to get the recruitment ball rolling.
Try Assessment Testing – If you can afford it, these personality trait profiles are a great way to suss out who a person truly is, not who they say they are. Everyone can charm their way through an interview, but not everyone can fake their way through a test that determines things like motivation, communication style, and integrity.
Reference Checks and Background Checks – Both of these are absolutely, 100%, without a doubt necessary. We love this explanation about references from Edward Lowe Foundation (here’s a direct quote):
“Check references carefully. Don’t skip this step. Some companies you call may only be willing to confirm facts for fear of a defamation lawsuit. Others, however, may give you some insight into the candidate. Listen to the tone of how the reference tells you about the candidate. For example: one former employer told the reference checker, “We agreed in the lawsuit not to say anything negative about that candidate.” Take the clue you’ve been handed and move on. At the very least, checking references will confirm the truthfulness of the candidates and their resumes. Be willing to spend significant time on this step as it is one of your best tools for preventing a bad hire.”
Obviously, we’re a background check company and we promote these tools. There is good reason. Click on these links to read more.
Workplace Violence Awareness: Always Screen Candidates Before Placement
How to Avoid a Cash Crisis With Background Screening
Summer is Coming: Have Your Kids’ Camps and Coaches Been Screened?
Automate What You Can – Lots of companies prefer to keep things in-house. That’s cool. Maybe you like a certain amount of control and autonomy, or you feel you’re better able to keep up to date with all the comings and goings in each department if everything is done within your walls. Let us suggest automating some of your procedures then. For example, Active Screening’sACTivate Complycan simultaneously reduce some of the HR department’s burden (thereby increasing efficiency and in turn, lessening cost – up to 20%!), and assure that all hiring data guidelines are being met. ACTivate Comply helps manage and track applicants through the hiring process more effectively with flexible compliance services and reporting.
Outsource What You Need – This post says it all. You need background checks completed on every potential hire and, routinely, on current employees. We do background screening really well. Sounds like a perfect match to us. Contact one of our client reps today to find out how Active Screening can optimize your hiring process.