Quite often, we receive this query from HR professionals and business managers who are starting out with the employee background verifications – which background checks should they select?
With a view to help answer this query, we have launched a new Verification Selector Tool which allows the users to interactively enter their input and to receive recommendations for different types of background checks that may be useful for them. The tool allows selection of industry, hierarchy level of the employees being hired, and functional areas for these employees, along with a host of other criteria. Then the tool suggests various background checks (like address, criminal records, criminal database, education, employment, reference, social media).
The tool also allows the user to mail these results to their own email ids and/or to share these with JantaKhoj team if they are interested in detailed consultation.
So please give the Verification Selector Tool a spin and let us know how you find it.
Abhishek Bachchan’s latest IDEA ad preaches that childbirth should not disrupt a woman’s career. She could use video conferencing facilities to monitor nannies and house cleaners back at home, enabling her to continue with her office work. Is it as easy and simple as it appears? Most women would disagree. It is not that simple. The major hurdle in such an arrangement is getting a good household help.
Nowadays several agencies offer trained domestic help. In the age of nuclear families wherein one no longer has the luxury of the doting grandparents watching over the children, such support systems certainly turn out be much more convenient. Wouldn’t you prefer a well-mannered, educated nanny to take care of your kids, and train them with the right set of do’s and don’ts rather than a bai watching TV, leaving your child unkempt and unfettered?
There is an alarming increase of thefts in the city as well, and the credit goes to some of these part time maids, who have successfully formed a crime network. They steal and pass on the stolen items to the pawn brokers. Pawnbrokers are also under scrutiny, as they do not verify the actual source of a stolen ornament. There is no way to retrieve a stolen item even if one lodges a police complaint. This is exactly what happened with one of my colleagues recently. She had employed a maid, who claimed that the apartment security guard had sent her. My colleague did not bother doing a domestic help background check. Just a week in the house and there was a theft in the house. She had guests at home for a week and the maid grabbed the opportunity and stole her guest’s jewelry. My colleague lodged a complaint with the police. Attempted to call and locate the maid. The maid had simply disappeared. Later she was informed that the same maid had duped many in the colony. Moreover, no one could do anything about it. So that sums up the sad state of domestic help in the Indian cities. Now she is determined not to keep any house help without getting a complete background check done. It is a case of once bitten, twice shy.
Domestic help crimes cases have continued to increase and occupy a major chunk of the newspaper dailies. Incidents such as these – maid steals debit card – withdrawing lakhs of rupees, planned crimes by house help couples, murders etc. have become commonplace. Nevertheless, who is aiding these people to continue in such a manner? Who is to be blamed? It is “we.” We want to hire house help, pay them five hundred rupees for the month, expect complete loyalty and sincerity, and thereby end up losing much more.
It is a much better and safer option therefore, to hire house help/nannies/drivers from trustworthy agencies that provide verified and trained employees. They do come at higher price but with the promise of trust and safety. There are some reputed providers or platforms like GetDomestic Help.com and Babajob.com. These companies have a good track record of providing trained and verified individuals who help in making your life happier and stress free.
This post aims to give an inside view of the industry to the customers who use employee background verification services. It will help them understand how the verification agencies compete and cooperate with each other to serve customers.
The background verification industry in India has emerged over the last decade to become a mature ecosystem with around 15-20 national and large regional players and literally hundreds of local players. India being a large country, with hundreds of cities and towns, 14000 police stations and 600 police offices, thousands of universities, it is impossible for a single player to have its own dedicated employees covering the entire nation. Relying on other verification agencies and providers to extend the geographical and logistical reach is the logical outcome.
Even the largest of the verification agency follows the outsourced model in which certain parts, if not all, of the verifications are conducted through a network of trusted partner agencies. At a certain level, the verification agencies may be competing with each other for the end user businesses, but at the implementation level, the agencies work with each other to extend their reach. For example, a large regional agency based in National Capital Region (NCR) may be in a position to manage all the verifications in the Northern region on their own or using their direct consultants. But they may enlist support of other regional agencies in Western, Southern and Eastern regions of the country. Also, they may select specific vendors for different types of verifications (viz. address, education, criminal) in each of these regions.
Using such a model would definitely mean sharing of the profits with other members down the value chain, but it will still be profitable than hiring their own employees in each and every part of the country and building the relationships that may be required for conducting educational and criminal checks. So the resulting value chain benefits customers as these lowered costs of operations lead to lower price for them.
In summary, the verification agencies ecosystem presents a very good example of ‘co-opetition’ where they cooperate and compete with each other to bring the best solution to the market.
Background Verifications | Tarun | 
February 16, 2012 3:42 pm | 
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