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HireRight: Redefining Background Screening with a Centralised Global Platform

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Steve Girdler,ManagingDirector, EMEA/APAC

Steve Girdler

ManagingDirector, EMEA/APAC

The job market in India is becoming increasingly candidate-driven with job seekers having ample choice for roles especially in skilled positions. This means that employers have to find ways to enhance their candidate experience and employer brand, so as to attract the best talent. At the same time, though, it's important that organisations do not neglect to verify the backgrounds of potential candidates. In a country as vast as India, it's all too easy to fabricate industry qualifications and memberships, as access to resources is increasingly complex, leading to disastrous consequences.

According to a study by SHRM,a bad hire can cost an organisation up to five times that person’s salary, taking into account costs to bring the candidate onboard and train him or her. It could potentially also harm a company’s reputation or compromise its safety and security if the candidate has access to sensitive data. It’s pertinent that organisations mitigate these risks as much as possible through implementing a robust and thorough background screening policy. Modern screening technology ensures the process can be efficient without sacrificing quality, enabling HR professionals to hire faster, better and easier. Outsourcing the task to a third party specialist could also help HR ensure an accurate, precise and timely background screen.

One such company is HireRight(Estd. 1981).The US-headquartered employment screening specialist continuously invests in leading technology to accelerate the background screening process and provide a seamless experience to both customers & candidates.

Global Reach, Local Expertise
Having offices across 11 countries and 17 locations over the past 37 years, the firm screened more than 13 million candidates in its last financial year and has approximately 40,000 customers in over 200 countries and territories. Being the only company in the background screening industry to use a single global platform, HireRight enables its clients to order worldwide searches from the same online platform globally, allowing organisations to view a candidate’s history in one user-friendly report. This also makes coordinating a global screening programme easier as employees who are in-charge of background screening in various offices of a company can access the same centralised platform and keep track of the checks ordered easily. At the same time, the product offers locally distinctive features based on regional and country-specific needs.

To protect the personal information of candidates, the solutions provider works proactively with data vendors throughout out the world and ensures that HireRight remains compliant with its delivery of products and services. Some examples include the Ban the Box and Pay Equity legislations in the United States. With the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) set to take effect on 25 May 2018, HireRight has been working to make sure that they are compliant, and also provide resources to help educate clients who will be affected by the GDPR.

Enhancing the Recruitment and Candidate Experience
Besides providing tailored background screening solutions, HireRight also focuses on streamlining the HR process as a whole for both candidates and recruiters a like. The company’s strategy and focus is to ‘Help People Get Hired’- helping its customers get the people that they need to be successful, and providing tools that
guide each candidate through the background screening process as quickly and easily as possible.

Underlying HireRight’s portfolio of more than 150 products and services is its web-based background screening portal, Applicant Center 2.0. Launched in 2016, the first-of-its kind platform has transformed the screening process for candidates and recruiters by making it simpler and faster to initiate and review background screening requests. Applicant Center 2.0 has received 4 global awards to date.“A fully-mobile background screening portal, Applicant Center 2.0 guides candidates step by step through the background check process, enables candidates to supply additional information, view the status in real-time as verifications are completed, and ask any questions directly to HireRight,” explains Steve Girdler, Managing Director of EMEA and APAC, HireRight. “This helps reduce recruiters’ workloads and improves efficiency, thus speeding up the screening process and resulting in faster time-to-hire rates.”

The company's strategy and focus is to 'Help People Get Hired’-helping its customers get the people that they need to be successful


The mobile experience also allows candidates to manage the entire verification process seamlessly across devices - a key feature that is critical for the many tech-savvy candidates who use mobile phones as their primary device, yet also continue to work across other connected devices at the same time.For recruiters, Applicant Center 2.0 helps optimise recruiting efficiency and speed up time-to-hire. Features unique to the platform include tabbed working environments, roll-over summaries providing the detail you need without leaving the dashboard page, flexible navigation & icons and a priority-based notification manager that can differentiate between notifications requiring actions and those that simply relay information. Organisations are also able to customise the interface to suit their own brand guidelines and incorporate company resources such as a welcome video. To simplify the background screening experience, HireRight’s Applicant Center 2.0 supports integration of 31 applicant tracking systems (ATS),including Cornerstone, SAP, Workday, Oracle, and Greenhouse.

Bespoke Background Checks
HireRight specialises in providing businesses with in-depth, impartial information on a candidate’s background and qualifications based on an employer’s specific screening needs. It helps an organisation minimise hiring risk, whether in verifying a candidate’s financial history for a Banking, Financial Services and Insurance client, or helping a Pharmaceutical company ensure a candidate has the appropriate and valid professional licenses under their belt for the job.

With products specially designed for each level of hire, whether for the boardroom or even a third-party contractor, HireRight leaves no room for ambiguity. For example, the Executive Intelligence offering, specifically for senior executive hires, delves deep into the key components of experience, credibility, potential threats and public profile. In addition, its Extended Workforce Screening (EWS) service verifies the credentials of contractors and vendors holding access to company premises, facilities or confidential information in order to mitigate unnecessary risks in hiring contingent workers and outsourcing vendors.

Unified & Engaging Workplace
Engaged employees are one of the most important aspects of a successful business. To build a company culture that its employees believe in, HireRight assembled a team of approximately 70 people from all levels, departments and locations to work together on initiatives and recognition
programmes. This resulted in a set of corporate values, which encourage employees to have a service-first mindset, be respectful to others, adopt a collaborative spirit and have a sense of ownership in whatever they do. Regular communications and corporate updates are also sent to all employees via email, and made available via the company intranet. These communications focus on a variety of external and internal topics, including industry news and their possible impact to HireRight and its clients.

Continually achieving revenue growth year-on-year both in Asia Pacific and worldwide, HireRight recently celebrated an office move in Mumbai and has a sizable Service Delivery and Operations team sitting in its Bangalore office. Over the last year, it has increased its investment in resources, expanding the customer service, business development and account management teams, to provide localised expertise to the India market. The company intends to keep India as a key focus market in Asia Pacific in 2018. “As a company, investments in our technology will continue to hold high priority. This includes striving to stay ahead of the competition in providing the most cutting-edge and highly-secure background screening technology, and creating localised products to serve the markets we operate in,” concludes Steve.

Key Management:
Jurgen Leijdekker, CEO
Ever since his tenure at HireRight as its President and COO,Jurgen has been the mastermind behind crafting growth strategies,enriching customer experience and fortifying operational transformations of multifarious organizations.

Steve Girdler, Managing Director, EMEA and APAC
Steve Girdler is HireRight’s Managing Director for EMEA and APAC, responsible for growing HireRight’s client base and capabilities in the regions with offices in various locations including UK, Poland, Singapore and India.

Steve joined HireRight in April 2013 from a background in executive management, business development, marketing and product development with expertise in the resourcing, HR solutions and professional services industries.

Offices: Irvine(Headquarter– U.S.),London (Headquarter– EMEA), Singapore(Headquarter – APAC), Tulsa, Nashville, Charlotte, Toronto, Mexico, Hong Kong, Philippines, Brighton, Estonia, Poland, Mumbai and Bangalore

Offerings:
• Criminal & Court Record Checks
• Identity Checks
• Employment History and Academic Verification
• Drug & Health Screening
• Credit History Checks
• Professional Qualifications Verification
• Financial Regulatory Checks
• Extended Workforce Screening
• Executive Intelligence
• Animal Rights Checks and many more


Awards & Recognition:
• HRO Today Services and Technology Association Award, North America, HR Practices - Screening Excellence, Winner 2017

• Stevie Award, American Business Awards, New Product or Service of the Year - Software, Human Capital Management Solutions, Bronze 2017

• Best in Biz Award, Enterprise Product of the Year - Software, Bronze 2016

• SIIA Software CODiE Award, Best Human Capital or Talent Management Solution, Finalist 2016, 2015

• Canadian HR Reporter Reader's Choice Award, Pre Employment Screening Services, Winner 2017

• Gold, Best Background Screening Provider Award, HR Vendors of the Year Singapore, 2015 and 2016

• Silver,Best Background Screening Provider, HR Vendors of the Year Singapore, 2017

• Gold, Best Background Screening Provider Award, HR Vendors of the Year Hong Kong,2017