The COVID-19 pandemic is putting a lot of pressure on recruiting managers who sometimes have trouble performing even the most basic background checks. The situation is most difficult for people looking to recruit personnel for domains who need more staff quickly in these troubled times. There’s a huge demand for health personnel or workers for online retailers, yet screening processes are seriously hampered by social distancing and lockdowns. Here are a few ideas to get around these problems
Use Online Police Checks
Even in those areas that are not under lockdown restrictions, most people would find it uncomfortable to have to go to their local police station for a background check, wait in line and interact with a lot of people. Thankfully, these checks can easily be made online, using the services of an agency accredited by the ACIC, which has access to police databases in all Australian states and can provide a police check for individuals in 1 to 3 business days. All without anyone putting themselves at risk of infection, all the paperwork is handled online, while the documents are sent back by email.
Resort to Short Term Contracts
When you’re in a rush to find staff and cannot go through all the normal screening checks, one solution is to use flexible contracts, without all the commitments made through a long term contract. It’s not optimal, but it allows businesses to quickly fill in the positions that urgently need personnel.
Some routine checks take a lot more time than usual these days and should the hiring managers discover problems with a temporary employee’s resume the flexible contract can be easily terminated, as opposed to the problems that might appear when deciding to terminate a long term contract.
Businesses Need to Collaborate
We’re in this together should be the motto of all employers. This is not a time for competition and trying to get ahead of each other. Under normal circumstances, a company might be reluctant to disclose information about former employees looking for a position elsewhere, but given the current situation companies should help each other out. It doesn’t cost anything to provide references about a former employee and you might benefit from this when looking to employ someone as well.
Hire Remotely
Remote working is the hottest topic in most companies these days and recruitment managers should take advantage of this new trend. Hiring someone to work from home carries fewer risks for a company, especially if you cannot perform all the necessary background checks quickly. Since that individual will not be showing up for work every day and interacting with the rest of the staff there will be no harm done even if it turns out that the new employee has a criminal history or a drug problem.
However, recruiting managers should keep in mind that even during these extraordinary times any new employee needs to go through all the required background screening checks. Even if it takes longer, they need to be done because sooner or later things will go back to normal and no one wants to get stuck with a bad hire.
