Compliant hiring during the festive season

The annual festive season is just around the corner and it’s time to ask – is your business ready? For many businesses, this festive time is also the busiest time of the year. Businesses will start looking to hire temporary staff to accommodate the crowds during peak season. According to survey hiring managers plan to hire 20% more temporary staff compared to last year. Because of how busy this holiday season is, many companies in past have chosen not to go through their normal hiring process. The persistent pressure during this period may make it tempting for your business to take the shorter route for hiring staff. However, your business needs to stay compliant even in the holiday season. These seasonal employees are as vital to your company as your full-time employees are, so there is no reason not to give them the same thorough background check. The new hire must go through the necessary screening process to ensure they are eligible to work in the UK.

"We couldn't ask for a better turnaround time when we've got queries or when our candidates have got queries as well. And it's a swift solution as well. So, it's not just the response time, but the solution provision is really good."

While hiring more seasonal workers, non-compliance with right-to-work checks can be troublesome for your business. Along with monetary fines, government intervention can damage your brand name and may affect day-to-day business operations. Home office guidance on right-to-work checks may not always be direct to apply especially when you need to onboard staff quickly to meet the demand of the festive season.

Giant Screening has a few tips for successful screening this festive season:

Be clear about your screening process

The purpose of background screening is to be sure about every hire. That purpose should never be overlooked, especially during the holidays when seasonal hires are a huge part of many companies. Be clear about your screening process and guidelines when you advertise roles. Advertise that you conduct in-depth screening and right to work checks. This will deliver a clear message about your hiring standards and set expectations on the documentation required from the candidates. Having well-informed candidates will ultimately reduce the hiring time and filter out candidates who either don’t have the required set of documents or are not eligible to work in the UK.

Investigate recruitment agency before hiring temporary staff

If your company is hiring temporary staff for the holiday season through a recruitment agency, make sure you ask the agency about their screening procedure, how they conduct ID checks, and collect proof of every check. This is vital because the liability of illegal hire is on the end hirer, and this can affect business reputation.

Confirm qualifications of temporary staff

Another important part of temporary hiring for the festive season is to be sure about the qualifications of the hires. You need to confirm all certifications, licenses, education, and employment history are true. Exaggerating certain qualifications on a CV is not uncommon. You want to make sure that the qualified person you think you are hiring is the person who will show up to work every day and you will not have to worry about replacement in the middle of your busiest time of the year.

ID verification tools

Today ID verification tools are accessible easily and can be used to one’s advantage. Traditional practices are inadequate when screening new and existing hires. The use of digitised assets and tools for pre-employment screening is a priority now, making digitisation the way forward. The implementation of developing technologies by HR is the key to achieving efficient background checking results especially when quick results are required. Companies need to focus on adopting a structured approach to implement technological changes in the screening process. This will ultimately enable them to work efficiently.