Case Study Conducting Background Invesigation:-

The world is changing. Borders are opening up. Workforces are crossing international boundaries. Barriers to global competition are lifting and technology is simplifying communication and allowing virtually anyone to enter the global job market. The only constant that remains in todays hiring equation is people. Rsum fraud is a widespread problem for employers in every industry and at any size company. Its persistent and sometimes even careful examination of a rsum wont immediately reveal red flags or problems. The only way to properly vet job candidates is to screen them with a thorough pre-employment background checking process.

The result of not comprehensive background screening checks was recently described on CNBC, 2018, titled: HR Confidential: I hired him without performing a background check. Then he stole his colleagues identities. Lets have a look at the case study.

I was a senior HR manager at a foreign banking company. An employee came to my office and informed me that someone had stolen his identity and applied for credit cards in his name. I took down a report but didnt think anything of it because I oversaw payroll and other sensitive information. It wasnt out of the ordinary for employees to notify me about changes to their banking information or if their bank account had been compromised. That way, I could make sure there were no issues with their deposits. But a week later, another employee came to me with the same problem and my red flag went up. By the third employee, I knew something was happening. I realized we had an internal problem because its too coincidental for three employees to have identity theft within a three-week span. My staff and I tried to figure out what was going on but we were getting nowhere.

The solution

After a few weeks, we hired an investigative company that specialises in fraud. They came to my office and requested the name, photo and address of everyone who has ever touched our employee files and I gave them a list of 15 to 20 people. One week later, they came back with the postmaster general and postal police officers who were armed with guns. They sat down, placed the list in front of me, pointed to a name and asked, Whos this person? I responded, Oh, hes a temp in our file room. They said, Bring him in. I brought him into my office and the guys in handcuffs in less than five minutes. I couldnt believe it. I was in shock. The guy was a temp employee who we had hired through an outside agency to work in our file room. When you have 3,000 employees, their personal files quickly pile up so we hired him to clean up each persons file, add information to them and put them away. However, he was going into these files, taking peoples social security numbers and stealing all of their information. The post office already had the guy under investigation for other credit card fraud that was linked to a particular address. Therefore, when they saw his name on our list, they were able to easily nail him. When he came into my office, he initially denied that he was the culprit. However, he eventually admitted that his friend talked him into stealing his colleagues information. He and his friend were stupid enough to fraudulently sign up for credit cards and got them sent to their home address. That address was the one that the postmaster spotted on our list. For the employees who had their identity stolen, this was such a nightmare. It took some of them more than a year to get this solved. I also felt somewhat responsible because Im the one who hired the temp and this happened under my watch. I did the best I could in providing support.

As a company, we did feel obligated to offer help and paid the service fees to help them clean up their records. I felt terrible. This went on for months for them. Luckily, they didnt sue us or anything but it was a mess.

Questions:-

i) What lesson can be Learnt from the above described fraudulent story?

ii) In-view of the above, what records and types of information need to investigate prior to hire someone?

iii) What are the sources from where information of a candidate can be obtains?

iv) What are the limitations during collecting information?

v) What is the best practices of conducting the background information to avoid any legal suit or defamation of the organization?