HRO Today just carried an article about outsourcing background checks with the title “Staffing Firm Finds a Better Option In Outsourcing Screening Services.” According to the story,
A privately held staffing company based in Seattle, Parker Staffing Service, LLC, provides temporary, contract, and full-time work in administrative, call center, IT, IS, development, QA, healthcare IT, and sales and marketing positions. Its staffing division focuses on the Pacific Northwest, while the technical and search divisions place candidates nationwide. In 1999, Parker decided to outsource background checks on every candidate it placed.
Doing background checks on every candidate is a good idea. But is outsourcing background checks a good decision? The people writing the story probably think it’s a good idea because they’re devoted to Human Resource Outsourcing (HRO). But, in the case of a temporary staffing company, it’s probably more expensive and slower than doing criminal and pre-employment credit checks yourself.
Temporary staffing firms provide workers with specific skills to companies that need to fill specific gaps in their workforce. The most important thing they do is verify that the person they’ll be sending out on a job has the right skills.
This is usually less a matter of reference checking than testing. A clerical worker’s resume might list working with Access and their prior employer might verify that. But the reference check doesn’t answer the question of whether the person can create a query table from scratch using Access. The temp agency must test for that.
That doesn’t mean that background checks aren’t important. They’re still part of your defense against a charge of negligent hiring. That’s true for all companies, not just temporary staffing firms.
If I were the consultant working with that staffing firm, I’d recommend that they make a criminal background check and pre-employment check part of the routine intake process, using a service like SentryLink. They’d get results faster and probably at lower cost. And they’d be able to do their own analysis of what they turn up.
As a general rule, I think it’s a good idea for you to gather and review hiring data, including background checks, yourself. No outsourcing company can possibly understand your needs as well as you do. HR outsourcing may work well for benefit plans and pensions where specialized knowledge is needed. But not for background checks. Do them yourself.