Why Australian Businesses Focus More on Pre-employment Hiring Policies Than Ever Before

Australian businesses have been ramping up their pre-employment screening protocols over the past few years and for good reason. Times have changed and there’s a lot of concern over ensuring workforce safety and protecting a company from fraud, especially digital fraud. At the same time, employers have more screening tools at their disposal, mainly thanks to modern technology.

Here are a few reasons why all employers should consider introducing a strict hiring policy and the best way to do so.

Preventing sexual harassment in the workplace

It took some very brave women who shared their ordeal to start a movement that shook our society to the core. The #MeToo movement started in Hollywood, but it rapidly grew to encompass all types of businesses. Women came forward to share stories of sexual harassment in their place of work, managers were forced to resign, big companies were publicly shamed and boycotted for failing to make sure such practices have no place in their organisations.

Sadly, Australia is no stranger to such practices and that needs to change. If they want to protect their female employees, businesses should start by introducing mandatory background checks to make sure the people they hire were never convicted of sexual offences.

Obviously, that’s not enough. All Australian businesses should also implement internal policies against sexual harassment. They should also introduce a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to harassment or discrimination.

Policies preventing employee theft and digital fraud

Modern technology brought us many benefits, but they also make it easier for evil-minded people to commit fraud or to steal vital business information.

Even at a time when many people work from home, this does not prevent them from accessing the company’s internal network. A decade ago, the biggest worry was employees stealing office supplies, products or a bit of money from the cash register. Nowadays, thieves have become more sophisticated. An IT expert can easily access the financial department’s computers and steal money directly from the company’s bank account.

Or they can steal all the company’s development plans or information on new products. Such actions can spell financial ruin for any company, unless employer’s take swift action and implement police checks.

Policies to run a background check

This is actually one of the good things technology brought us. In Australia there are several online agencies specializing in background checks resulting in organisations making this a part of their pre-employment policies to mitigate hiring risk. An example is the ANCC service whose web link is: https://www.australiannationalcharactercheck.com.au and enbales recruiters and individual applicants both within Australia and internationially to obtain their pre-employment background checks online.

The services are accredited with the federal government and have access to the national checking database. Ordering a criminal history check with one such agency is just as good as getting one from the local police department.

The good thing is that online agencies operate much faster than the national police and you get the result delivered straight to your email in 1-2 business days. All done over the Internet!

Such checks provide the full picture of a person’s past and employers will be happy to know the new employee is not a danger to the staff or to the company itself.

Jobs and recruitment policies with realistic requirements

It is known that employers and HR workers figuring out what the requirements of a job should actually be prevents unwanted applicants from applying in the first place and thereby saving time and resources in the hiring process.

The attributes that certain required candidates must have to be able to perform the job role is known to be a larger challenge in the modern era. This is due to the fact that so many organisations have now ended up reducing the actual number of internal recruitments within the workplace whose function was known to scale back on the hiring workers’ requirement lists.

Earlier research from the Harvard Business Review has found that workplaces that have stacked on certain job requirements, have put them into candidate software that sorted resume and CV’s according to certain binary decisions that the HR manager perceived as being crucial to the job role E.g. (yes, it has the required key words; no, it does not). This research from HBR then ended up finding out that in actual fact, there were no applicants that ended up meeting all of the set out criteria as was intended. It has been found that trimming down on the recruiters who have perceived expertise in recruitment policies and processes and then handing those processes over to the hiring managers in the organisation is a good  method of being wise with dollars being spent on recruitment processes.

Cutting down to the chase

It is found that it is actually easy for employers and HR managers in Australia to adopt an attitude that activities which relate to re-employment hiring and recruitment (including policy making for hiring at the workplace) are only a mere routine work without a large amount of value that is attached to the process.

It has been found that having a suitable policy in place that is readily available for HR workers or hiring managers in relation to background checks and reference checks, drug testing, and behavioral and skills are known to be perhaps the most suitable and also the most objective method that a hiring manager or workplace can utilise in order to screen out candidates that will end up becoming unsuitable workers, whilst at the same time also confirming the fit of some other who will end up doing great for the organisation and taking the organisation to the next level in its growth plans.

Relying on your own “Gut feelings” or chemistry to obtain references or make important hiring decisions for the workplace can end up being a costly mistake. This may end up costing the organisation both time and money and in the worst case scenario a legal case when the wrong worker has been hired who does not have a suitable character that is fit for the job.