How to quickly and efficiently screen seasonal hires

Seasonal recruitment often means hiring a large number of new staff within this short time period, which can place added pressure on your team members and areas of the business, such as your Talent and HR departments. The sudden influx of applications, interviews, training and so on, can mean your existing HR processes can become strained, so it is worth thinking about which areas of the hiring process can be outsourced and whether you need to recruit extra HR staff to support this increase in recruitment.

When deciding how you’re going to recruit a large number of new hires quickly, particularly when budgets to manage these are often constrained, you may be thinking about which parts of the onboarding process you can streamline.

In this blog we help answer 3 of the most common areas recruiting teams question when efficiency and budgets are top priority:

Should we perform background checks on seasonal workers?

Time pressure during seasons of high demand, mean it sometimes seems like there just isn’t enough time to perform background checks – you just need to hire staff in quickly. But if there’s one thing to consider when looking at ways to speedily recruit, do not forgo background screening. For seasonal hiring in particular, the background screening of candidates is vital to ensure you employ the right people to represent your brand. Skipping background checks brings risks to your customer safety, your legislative obligations, including security and data protection; the outcomes of which may be costlier (potentially hitting your bottom line) than the time and expense it takes up to complete background checks.

Think about the increased number of regulated roles or financial transactions that take place during this busy quarter. Putting unchecked bulk or seasonal hires in positions who have access to sensitive information is a huge risk if data is fraudulently used or abused. The current economic market and strains on peoples’ finances, with interest rates significantly increasing, CIFAS (Credit Industry Fraud Avoidance System) has recently reported[1] that insider threats and fraud are at an all-time high, with CIFAS[2] quoting “1 in 13 Brits admit to committing at least one form of first-party fraud in the last year, with those 16-34 the most likely to do so”.

If you employ service personnel such as delivery drivers or engineers, who may need to enter peoples’ homes to make deliveries or install equipment, then you need to make sure you’re carrying out the right type of background checks, such as; Criminal Record Checks, Qualification/Professional Body and/or DVLA checks, to ensure you are protecting your customers and your brand reputation.

When it comes to employing a large volume of seasonal hires, how do you perform background checks quickly and efficiently?

As with many areas of business, when it comes to needing to upscale quickly for a short period of time or for on-mass recruitment drives ie TUPE transfers, the most efficient route is usually to look to outsource this area. It also means you can bring in outside expertise to maintain your onboarding standards, and checks can be carried out quickly, as the outsourced partner is focused only on the task in hand.

Consistent hiring procedures can be maintained across your entire workforce, so the same background checks are performed for the same job roles, regardless of the length of employment or time of year recruited; the perfect approach for permanent and temporary staff.

With a high volume of hires, will the cost of checks become expensive?

There is a cost-efficient way of ensuring you carry out the relevant background checks you need without needing a huge budget and giving you a return on your investment by reducing hiring attrition.

Some background checks, such as the Right to Work Check, is mandatory and so costs can’t be avoided. However, if you think about efficiencies in resource, applications that allow these checks to be done quickly, such as the Experian Right to Work mobile apps, including digital ID verification, share code capture and Imposter Checks, you can ensure these types of checks are performed without draining resource and placing additional pressures on your internal HR and recruitment teams. When employing seasonal hires, on top of Right to Work, Adverse Financial Checks are another great way to swiftly and cost effectively screen your new hires. This package of checks is available from Experian for £54.99 and includes a Basic Criminal Record Check.