If you’re debating the merits of adding social media to your background screening process, you aren’t alone. A Harris Poll survey found that 70% of hiring managers consider screening candidates’ social media profiles to be useful during the hiring process. Recently, we discussed the benefits of social media screening with Ben Mones. As CEO and Founder of Fama, a world-leading social media screening company, Ben knows both the potential pitfalls — and real-world benefits — of incorporating social media into the background screening process.

First, the potential pitfalls. Correctly identifying candidates’ social media accounts is challenging on its own, but manually combing through them can slow your hiring process to a crawl. For more common names, like John Smith, identifying the correct person can be especially difficult. Ben notes that using advanced technology (i.e. natural language processing and machine learning) complemented by human expertise helps HR staff to filter out the noise and view the most relevant information.

Another pitfall comes from the regulatory landscape. Compliance with federal, state, and local employment and privacy laws is always a top-of-mind concern for human resources teams. Social media screening can reveal more than what you might discover in interviews, including candidates’ views on religion, politics, lifestyle, and other topics they feel passionate about. But because of the wide variety of information that may be shared on social media, it’s important to align your process and policies to meet Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), and other relevant compliance laws and guidelines.

As our recent article in Recruiter.com notes, “Everyone you hire is someone who will represent your brand, influence your customers, and have access to your company’s resources and assets. You need to tailor your social media screening policy toward the areas of most concern for your business. For example, if branding is your biggest area of risk, you want to look at how candidates’ social media activity reflects their ability to be positive ambassadors for your brand.” Certainly, HR leaders need to set a clear process reflective of their corporate values while also establishing what kind of information is relevant, making sure to only consider information as it applies to the role being filled.

Now for the advantages: clear reasons that your organization may want to incorporate social media screening in its overall background screening process:

#1: Meet the Expectations of Today’s Consumers & Employees

A strong, fair background check process demonstrates your commitment to these values. Ben notes: “Modern background checks cover elements like employment history, education verification, and criminal background checks. I don’t think that’s ever going to change. But now we’re finding that employers are also starting to look at the sorts of things that their customers and employees care about.”

Social media is filled with this type of information. Ben encourages employers to consider what their brand stands for: what important stances should it take? By doing so, brands can identify what matters most. For example, when deciding how best to support a strong commitment to diversity and inclusion­, HR professionals could decide to add social media screening to their hiring process to help detect behaviors which violate specific laws or policies identified by their employers. After all, background screening is about protecting your employees, your customers, and your brand. “The wrong hire could alienate people and make them not want to patronize your business,” says Ben.

This benefit leads to our next reason for social media screening:

#2: Strengthen Your Organizational Culture

A strong workplace culture is all about authenticity: do workers really share your organization’s corporate values? To this end, social media screening helps organizations spot patterns that an interview or typical background check might not capture (for example, extreme political beliefs). According to a recent survey on authenticity in the workplace, candidates and employees alike may act less authentic at work for a number of reasons. In fact, 7 in 10 people said they adopt a different personality at work than they do at home. The survey also found that 3 in 5 people admit to hiding something from their current employer:

• 37% hide their political views
• 36% hide information about their families

Most often, these details are hidden for specific reasons:

• 49% do it so people won’t feel uncomfortable
• 43% do it to avoid stereotyping
• 41% do it because they fear it will impact career advancement

This is especially true for individuals in the LGBTQ+ community and those of different religions, races, or nationalities:

• 85% of LGBTQ+ employees say they have a different personality at work, compared to 64% of heterosexual employees.
• 52% of African Americans have hidden information about themselves or their lives out of fear of stereotyping and 47% out of fear of being discredited.

Interestingly, remote work has a freeing effect, with 92% of people reporting that they were in fact authentic at work. The survey also found they also felt more relaxed (61%) and more inclined to speak their mind (40%) compared to in-person or hybrid employees. Cultivating authenticity across your organization helps HR staff to build a happier, more productive workforce. To this end, adding social media as a component of your background screening process can help maintain a strong work culture. “Authenticity can be a key component of job satisfaction. Employees who feel they can be authentic in the workplace have a sense that they’re valued as individuals and trusted,” the survey found. Which leads to our third reason for social media screening:

#3. Improve Employee Retention by Avoiding a Toxic Workplace

Not sure how background checks­ lead to good or poor employee retention? Social media screening can be used as a way to help identify if the people coming into an organization might contribute to a safe and productive workplace culture. That’s particularly important now, as companies everywhere struggle with both hiring difficulties and a flood of resignations.

Citing a study into drivers of the Great Resignation, MIT Sloan Management Review notes, “Not surprisingly, companies with a reputation for a healthy culture, including Southwest Airlines, Johnson & Johnson, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, and LinkedIn, experienced lower-than-average turnover during the first six months of the Great Resignation.” And while many attribute hiring and retention problems to poor compensation, a worker’s hourly rate or salary isn’t the biggest issue. When the researchers evaluated 170+ cultural topics, they found that a toxic culture is 10.4 times more likely to contribute to attrition than compensation.

The article suggests that “The leading elements contributing to toxic cultures include failure to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion; workers feeling disrespected; and unethical behavior.” By defining what’s most relevant to their business, employees, and culture, HR leaders can customize social media screening and empower their HR teams to make well-informed decisions.

Ben explains, “Screening isn’t like a Klout score: it’s not a thumbs-up or thumbs-down. You determine your goal and draw the line to flag what is most critical to your culture, including signs of intolerance, threats, or harassment.” When management hires people who have a history of acting intolerant or threatening towards others, it can have a negative impact on everyone’s productivity and make good employees want to leave. Employee background checks are a good investment. Companies already have an existing focus on employee recruitment, onboarding, training, engagement, and retention. Investing in expert background checks and social media screening can be a great way to support all these initiatives, particularly if it helps attract and hire candidates that support a positive culture.

Sterling is not a law firm. This publication is for informational purposes only and nothing contained in it should be construed as legal advice. We expressly disclaim any warranty or responsibility for damages arising out this information. We encourage you to consult with legal counsel regarding your specific needs. We do not undertake any duty to update previously posted materials.

Sterling RISQ has been operating in the background screening and verification industry for over 25 years. During this time, we have global offices across key markets, and we conduct 95 million searches for over 25,000 clients across geographical lines annually.

Although we have grown and evolved, our overarching aim has largely remained the same – to create safer work environments and experiences for our clients.

We have developed a unique delivery model of our services to clients to achieve this aim after plenty of experience and by iterating and testing different approaches.

Our service delivery model is based around a client-first approach, and the primary tenets of the model are to:

• support and advise our clients throughout the background screening process and foster a positive and effective working relationship with them (via our account management services), and
• deliver timely and accurate background checks (via our case management services).

Account management services

In order to provide effective support and advice to our clients and to nurture a positive working relationship, we assign experienced account managers to each client as their primary point of contact. Account managers provide progress updates on searches and checks to their clients to ensure the lines of communication are clear, timely, and relevant.

Account managers also support their clients at a strategic level by recommending suitable and tailored screening packages for the needs of their client companies. They can further provide more in-depth analysis such as risk vs cost benefits for each screening service.

Case management services

Our delivery model is also designed to provide accurate and timely checks to our clients, as we understand that our clients are working in a busy, fast-paced business world where time is of the essence.

Our case management services are therefore in place to provide support on each account at a transactional level. Case managers fulfill the day-to-day requirements of processing checks, ensuring they are conducted in a timely manner, and managing back-end processes like populating reports and results into a client’s portal.

Case managers are truly the backbone of our company in terms of processing checks quickly and accurately – a characteristic that Sterling RISQ prides itself on.

Our unique delivery model

With their forces combined, case management and account management staff are both vital to delivering optimal services for our clients. Case management staff ensure the speedy processing of checks, whilst account management staff provide the client-facing service needed for a smooth and synchronised relationship.

We have developed this unique delivery model over our many years in the industry and have found this model to be the most effective for delivering our services in an impactful and timely way.

We hope you find our services delivered on these goals – please contact us on info@sterlingrisq.com if you have any feedback or any other suggestions on how we could improve our service delivery to you.

Pride Month is here! 🏳️‍🌈

Every June we join together across Sterling and the world to celebrate the many achievements and contributions of the LGBTQIA+ community to society. We also take time to recognise the ongoing challenges that people within the community continue to face in many parts of the world.

There are many Pride events throughout the year, however June is recognised as Pride Month due to the important commemoration of the 28 June 1969 raid of the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, Manhattan.

Following the raid there was a six-day uprising, and protests were staged against the police brutality inflicted upon Stonewall Inn patrons. These protests are often regarded as the catalyst for the modern Pride Movement to secure and protect the rights of LGBTQIA+ individuals. This movement continues today.

Sterling will join in the recognitions, celebrations, and forums this month by highlighting LGBTQIA+ trailblazers, organisations, resources, and events that advocate for and support the LGBTQIA+ community.

Keep an eye out on Sterling’s social media platform LinkedIn for spotlights on our LGBTQIA+ employees. We will hear about the significance of Pride Month to them and learn how they celebrate with their family, friends, and communities.

There are many opportunities for all of us to show support, to observe, to listen, and to be educated. You can learn more about the upcoming global events celebrating Pride Month at https://www.iglta.org/Events/LGBTQ-Pride-Calendar.

2020 and 2021 have ushered in record transformations in the workforce, making upcoming HR staffing trends important to spot now in order to smoothly pivot staffing teams for success. Here are the major workforce trends we’ve seen that HR teams can bear in mind as they work to hire candidates while also being mindful of the need for safety in the workplace.

As SIA reported last year, contingent workers made up more than a third (35%) of the labor market in 2020. While it’s true that businesses can meet increased demand by quickly hiring contingent workers, an incomplete onboarding process can also present serious risks to workplace safety.

Traditionally, staffing organizations have focused on background screening their full-time employees rather than including the contingent workforce as a whole. Unfortunately, as the remote worker population has spiked, so has identity fraud. According to the Aite Group’s report, U.S. Identity Theft: The Stark Reality, identity theft cases caused over $500 billion in losses in 2019 and ballooned by 42% to over $712 billion in 2020. We believe it’s critically important to build a consistent hiring program (regardless of your workforce population) when conducting background checks. For example, remote contractors often use proprietary business equipment, networks and tools from their homes. These unsecured areas pose a real security risk to a company’s operations and brand.

Identity verification has only become more important as the workforce continues its slow flight from the office. Forbes cites a 2021 Accenture report which found that 83% of workers surveyed preferred a hybrid model allowing them to work remotely at least a quarter of the time. There’s also an increasing risk that candidates using stolen IDs will pass easily through a standard background check. According to a study of HR professionals conducted by HR.com, one in five of those responding reported instances of candidate or worker identity fraud at their organization. It’s a common misconception that a background check automatically verifies an applicant’s identity. After all, candidates may be using someone else’s stolen personal information, bought from a webpage for just a few dollars.

PREMIUM CONTENT: North America Internal Staff Survey 2022: Use of Technology by Staff: Training Needed and Types of Automation that Would Help Staff the Most

In our view, identity verification has become vital — not just in 2022, but beyond — in order to build a safe and successful workplace. HR staffing teams should think more broadly about how identity checks will promote trust and safety in the workplace, both physical and remote.

According to Sterling’s SIA webinar produced in February of this year in partnership with Pro Unlimited, staffing firms will need more accurate data in order to drive accelerated placement of top talent. Inaccurate candidate data can produce erroneous background check results, and these errors can snowball to impact the integrity of the rest of your candidates’ life cycle, from hiring to onboarding. Identity verification helps to support data integrity by capturing accurate data on the front end of the talent acquisition process.

Ultimately, to help determine if their candidates are authentic, employers should focus on ensuring that digital identity verification is an element of their onboarding process. However, identity verification is not a standard part of the background screening process, though many HR professionals assume that it is. Instead, identity verification is a separate component that requires modern, fast and agile technology.

Digital ID verification technology can also add efficiency to the onboarding process. “Identity verification tools drive data accuracy and put candidates in control of their information, helping to speed up hiring and onboarding while delivering a frictionless candidate experience,” says Blake Hall, ID.me founder and CEO. Identity verification also has a downstream effect: By offering candidates a secure way to prove their identity using their smartphone (much like a digital wallet), HR staffing teams provide a positive candidate experience, which can in turn improve the hiring process and increase candidate retention.

The rise of contingent workers in the modern workforce is a trend that’s likely to continue throughout 2022. Identity verification can and should be designed at the very start of the background screening process to give staffing managers proof that candidates are who they say they are. Companies who integrate identity verification into their onboarding process can help to mitigate corporate risk, gain confidence when hiring and ultimately promote trust and safety in their workplace.