Lurking dangers
Take, for instance, the simple act of going to the bank to deposit some money. You expect them to be safe there and it never crosses your mind the teller in front of you might be a thief or an embezzler. The same goes for many everyday occurrences. You simply expect the parking lot attendant will look after your car, just as you assume the hotel maid won’t be going through your stuff in your absence. Or how about going to a doctor, you don’t expect your physician to be a sex offender, do you?
Our belief that we’re safe comes from the assumption that the people we meet have been carefully scrutinized and have undergone and have access to a current police check before being hired. Yet, in Australia, police checks are mandatory only for a few sensitive fields. For all the rest, it depends on HR departments to do so.
Unfortunately, some decide not to bother with a proper background check and simply go with their guts. How was I supposed to know that guy had an extensive criminal record, right? Wrong, putting your trust in someone just because they have an honest face is a risky decision and can backfire spectacularly.
The benefits of running a police check
If you want to protect your business, your employees and your customers you should always go for a background check, even if it is not mandated by law. You want to make sure your company’s funds are safe, make sure you don’t hire a known fraudster or a scam artist. Would you even consider riding a cab with a drunk driver? Definitely not, so you should see to it that the drivers you hire for your company’s trucks don’t have a drinking problem. The list could go on and on but it all boils down to one thing, if you want to keep your business, your staff and your clients safe you should make sure you don’t hire any bad apples.
Although not mandatory in many fields, over the past few years there’s been an increase in companies making police checks a part of their hiring protocols. On the one hand, people understand just how important it is to provide a safe working environment and the safety of their customers and business partners. On the other hand, doing a background check has never been easier.
When you work with an online government approved agency all you have to do is upload the basic identity information of a prospective employee and in a couple of days you get a full national police check that compiles data from all the police databases around the country. If the report comes back clean you can be certain your new employee won’t put your company and staff at risk.
