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Posted by Karmabunny on

Hands up anyone who’s got too much time on their hands…

Yep. We thought so.

For the majority of HR departments, the decision to leave police checks to applicants is a perceived necessity to reduce the workload on staff and avoid adding extra pressure to a department with already stretched operating budgets.

But there are some compelling reasons why taking on the responsibility of police checks – and not leaving it to the candidates – might be better in the long run, and be totally affordable and time-effective if the appropriate provider is introduced into your organisation.

Consider the following:

1. You need to make sure the source of police checks is reputable and accurate

Are you confident the police check providers your applicants are using are as diligent in the way they acquire their information as you are in your hiring decisions? Handling police checks yourself ensures the integrity of the information you’re being supplied. If the quality and veracity of the information on a police check are not beyond reproach, then there’s no use doing the police check in the first place.

2. You need to be confident the report is not a forgery

Bringing your police checks in-house guarantees the information you’re looking at is genuine and not tampered with in any way. The pressure to land secure employment can – and sometimes does – mean people do desperate things. We’ve all made mistakes in our past and, in some cases, ‘failing’ a police check might not necessarily be the end of the road for an applicant’s chances of landing that job, but you need to make an informed decision so that means making sure the information you are looking at is real.

3. You need consistency in the reporting procedure

If applicants are left to their own devices with police checks, you may be receiving information from a number of different providers, which has been sourced, presented and delivered in any number of ways. Handling the process yourself – in partnership with a provider you trust – means consistency, security and, most importantly, peace of mind. By choosing the right police check provider, you also get the efficiency dividends of knowing exactly how the information is going to be handled, stored and processed.

4. You need to make the recruitment process as stress-free as possible

Again, when you’re embarking on a recruitment drive – or you’re in an industry that experiences high staff turnover or cyclical staffing peaks – the hiring process can be exhausting and, often times, quite stressful. Handing police checks yourself with your preferred provider is a simple way to reduce some of the associated headaches and can even facilitate greater control and efficiency in the process.

As we showed in our Pacific Brands’ case study, by partnering with one provider, Pacific Brands and NCC were able to seamlessly integrate their HR platforms, reducing a significant amount of stress for their HR department. Importantly for Pacific Brands, however, was the candidates’ experience, which we managed to help turn from a chore to something that was enjoyable.

“Whenever we have someone who goes through our recruitment process, we want them to have a good experience, whether they are successful or not,” explains Claire Kirk, HR manager, Pacific Brands. “The main advantage [of partnering with NCC is that it] has really improved our candidate experience. Anything that's making it easier for us to make people happy is very valuable to a company like Pacific Brands."

5. You need to show candidates that police checks are important and not just a tick-box measure

This is pretty much self-explanatory: by mandating police checks as a condition of employment, you’re sending a clear message about the value you place on probity, as well as the integrity of your organisation. Put up all the mission statements and values posters in the world but there’s nothing like walking the walk, as well as talking the talk, to show you’re serious about something.

Police checks should never be just an after-thought in the recruitment process. Take control of your police checking procedures and make them count.

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