For years enterprise-sized companies have had a variety of tools at their disposal to minimise the potential risk posed by new recruits. With the introduction of CSI Safeguard, these tools are now also available to small businesses, like yours.
The risks we refer to here are easily imagined: theft, fraud, and just about any other crime and misdemeanour that could negatively affect your business. And while thorough interview processes might be in place, the reality is that you don’t really know who it is you’re hiring; competitor and syndicate affiliations, previous unrecorded criminal acts, and other character anomalies can’t be detected through standard hiring practices.
There are a number of good surveys out there which list the primary concerns of small business owners. On average, 27% of owners list access to funding as a primary concern, a figure only surpassed by the need to remain competitive (42%). The question then becomes one of how these concerns can be affected by potential stock losses, fraud, and other criminal acts.
Given the state of the South African economy, now might be the best time to invest in measures which add an active layer of protection to the business. In 2016 commercial crimes rose by 3.1% with 69,917 cases reported, compared to 67,830 in 2015. These figures have been rising year-on-year over the past few years, and as our downgraded economy flirts with recession (which, technically, is happening right now), things could only get worse.
CSI Safeguard provides a three-pronged screening solution to provide an initial layer of protection against unsavoury job candidates. We call it CSI Safeguard. It includes:
The background screening feature of CSI Safeguard includes ID verification and consumer trace. As such it serves to verify the identity of the job applicant, as well as address verification.
This feature can be enhanced by including any number of additional background checks such as credit checks, driver’s license checks, qualification verification, reference verification, and so on.
Polygraph testing, or lie detector tests, boast an accuracy rate of more than 80% (depending on who you ask). These tests are capable of revealing undocumented aspects of a candidate’s character, and past behaviour. Criminal syndicate affiliations, competitor affiliations, unrecorded instances of theft or other wrongdoing while previously employed are all aspects which can be tested for during a pre-employment polygraph test.
As an interesting aside, we’ve found that polygraph testing can result in a surprisingly high number of confessions, perhaps due to the rumour of its efficacy.
Hiring someone who has a track record of wilful wrongdoing could not only endanger your business, but also your employees. Negligent hiring is a serious business.
On a final note, it’s worth pointing out that CSI Safeguard is not only for job candidates, but for existing employees who may not have had their backgrounds or criminal record status checked. The Pre-employment polygraph test can be replaced with a periodic polygraph test to determine the integrity of the employee during the time of his or her employment with your business.
The aim with CSI Safeguard and the various other tools we offer to businesses is to establish a verified platform of trust between employer and employee. With this basis for trust in place, it becomes easier to rely on the people in your employ from the get-go, and so boost the potential for productivity and, ultimately, success.
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