Five benefits of background checks prior to employment in retail services

​While many retail businesses have introduced routine criminal history checks as part of their pre-employment screening, other HR managers still wonder if such checks are really necessary.
 
Asking a job applicant to submit to a background check can be a bit awkward and HR managers worry it’s a waste of time. It doesn’t have to be awkward if you use background checks for all your employees and, no, it takes no time at all to get a background check if you use an online agency.
 
And there are a lot of benefits, some of them you’ve probably never considered before.

Keep your retail company safe

​Every time there’s a job opening, the Human Resources department puts out an ad for a retail worker, head manager, retail store delivery driver, etc. No one advertises for thieves or convicted fraudsters. Nor will a candidate tell you they’ve been to prison for company fraud or embezzlement.
 
These things happen, however. Once someone like that gets out of prison they’ll need a job. Maybe they’ve mended their ways, maybe not. You don’t know if the guy in front of you is hoping to get hired to use their old scheme on you and defraud your company. A simple background check can tell you if you’re dealing with a decent person or not.
 
In Australia or the U.S, all you have to do is choose an online police check agency like Equifax or Australian national character check (ANCC)  that can take care of all your background checks. These online agencies have intuitive, easy to use interfaces and it only takes a couple of minutes to order a criminal history check on someone. The results come back in 1-3 days, so it’s not like you’ll lose any time waiting for the police clearance.

Keep your staff safe

​Your employees have the right to a safe and secure workplace. If you don’t use background checks you risk hiring an offender or a violent thug, and this can create a lot of problems further down the line.
 
Would you like to see your company embroiled in a harassment case? Probably not, which is why you should do a quick background check on any new employee.

Increased productivity

Wondering what’s the link between productivity and background checks? It’s very simple – a bad hire can cause a lot of disturbances in the workplace. We’re not talking about big career criminals here, even a petty thief can cause a lot of problems if things start to go missing.

On the other hand, if you hire a reliable individual, there won’t be any disturbances and you’ll see the results in increased productivity.

Reduced employee turnover

​Hiring people only to fire them after a couple of months when they prove unsatisfactory is not just a waste of time, but also of money. The HR employees waste weeks going through the process of hiring someone, the new recruit will require an adjustment period, you’ll have additional training costs, while the rest of your employees will have to work more to cover for the former colleague you had to fire when you discovered what they were up to.

Better quality hires

​Once you start using routine background checks you’ll notice something odd. The quality of the job applicants will be vastly improved as shady characters stay away from your company. For example, someone working for a taxi service will be much more reliable if you are aware that they are not a criminal offender and will therefore not harm customers in the car.
 
At the same time, reliable professionals will become more interested in obtaining a position with you as a strict pre-employment screening protocol projects the image of a serious business, where employees are protected, and bad characters are not allowed.