Why Many SMBs Don’t Do Pre-Employment Background Screening

Lack of concern. Some SMB managers believe that only cops, teachers, and doctors should be subject to employment background checks. That point of view is outdated. Nowadays, many private companies are consistently performing pre-employment background screening, for the reasons listed in the second half of this article.

Lack of Internal Support and Expert Knowledge. Many SMB leaders assume that any pre-employment background screening they do must be done in-house. The prospect of training an employee to carry out background checks is intimidating to most managers, especially since it could very well take a person months to research the best background check procedures. However, partnering with pre-employment background screening outsourcing firms allows all companies quick, convenient access to employment background checks.

Overestimation of Cost. Many SMB leaders hold a misconception about pre-employment background screening, namely that it’s exorbitantly expensive. If you’re open to the possibility of outsourcing your employment background checks, you can typically conduct pre-employment background screening for no more than $50 per job candidate.

Top 5 Reasons Why SMBs should Conduct Employment Background Checks

1. Decreased Costs. You’ll find better job candidates if you conduct pre-employment background screening. Improved hiring means that you’ll spend less money counteracting negative PR, lose less money to negligent hiring lawsuits, and see fewer employee-generated losses, such as embezzlement. Finally, it’s typically much less expensive to outsource employment background checks, rather than doing them in-house.

2. Fewer legal trip-ups. Each state has its own law in place regarding negligent hiring. These laws are intended to protect the public by preventing dangerous individuals from being hired for delicate positions. As an example, many states’ alcohol laws require that employees have three years of felony-free history before they can be hired for a job that involves serving alcohol. Failing to check out candidates backgrounds through pre-employment background screening opens you to the risk of being sued or fined for failing to do your due diligence on new hires.

3. Safer Employees. Human Resource gurus estimate that 1 out of 10 job applicants have a criminal history. If you don’t carry do employment background checks, it’s more likely that you’ll hire a dangerous individual who could hurt your employees, your customers, and your business’ reputation.

4. Accelerated hiring. The majority of pre-employment background screening companies offer results in 48 hours. In this sense, outsourcing employee background checks can mean speedier hiring. In just a day or two, you can get the information you need to determine if that seemingly perfect candidate has any skeletons lurking in his or her closet.

5. Discover dishonesty in applications. Here’s another scary HR statistic for you: researchers calculate that approximately 4 out of 10 resumes feature deceitful omissions, if not total lies. Employment background checks reveal such dishonesty so that you can avoid hiring mendacious individuals.

As we’ve seen, there are many reasons why owners of small and medium-sized businesses should arrange employee background checks.

To aid small business owners in their promotional
activities, the Sydney Small Business Centre has recently released a
short five-step guide for public relations.

According to the
Centre, public relations is a part of marketing that is all about
promoting a business or product without having to pay for it, and
includes press releases, trade shows, conferences, seminars and events.

The Centre says there are five steps small business owners need to take in order to achieve success with their public relations.

The
Centre says that the best way for a business owner to get started on
their PR strategy is by answering these three questions:
What are you trying to say?
What are you trying to achieve?
What is the result you want?

Answering
these three questions is important to give yourself a clear idea of why
PR is being undertaken, and will also guide where and how it is done.

The Centre also recommends that small business owners keep the following axiom in mind when executing their own PR strategies:

Who do you want to want you? And why should they want to?

2. Know the customer

Knowing
the target customer of a business is one of the most important parts of
a businesses marketing strategy, and it’s no different for PR. Business
owners need to know what their customers are watching, reading and
listening to, as well as the websites they go to and the things they’re
interested in. Knowing this will help business owners make the most of
their PR efforts and focus them on the appropriate forms of media.

3. Don’t just wait for things to happen

PR
isn’t going to work by sending out a media release and then sitting by
the phone waiting for ABC Radio to call. The best way to get coverage is
by understanding where news should be placed, sending it to the right
person and chasing them up. Business owners can’t rest on their laurels -
PR is all about identifying the right opportunities and actively
pursuing them.

4. Be newsworthy
When
business owners are writing something to promote their business they
need to make sure it is newsworthy in one of the following respects:

5. Always think about the big picture

PR
is all about being active and getting a business’ name out there
through as many different mediums as possible. Business owners need to
keep the big picture in mind and make sure their PR strategy involves
active engagement with a variety of media.

Co-creation through open innovation and crowdsourcing
is what most companies focus on in order to capitalize on the
creativity and intelligence of the worldwide audience. Multinational
food manufacturing company Kellogg’s, United States undertook a creative
initiative that helped them in a creating a new product the Cereal
Straws. This project initially commenced in Spain where nine to ten
years old children discussed their breakfast concerns and ways to
resolve them. What came up from these detailed discussions was an idea
that one should not only drink milkshakes through straws but also should
be able to eat the straw afterwards that should be crunchy and taste
good. The outcome was a brand new product called Kellogg’s Cereal Straws
that already had its target audience defined way before the product
release.

Efficient techniques for idea capture not only helps
companies attain creative inputs for new product development but also to
let their consumers know that their views and ideas count. Sometimes,
brands make use of open innovation and mass idea sharing process in
order to boost up their existing product range both for attaining
increased revenue and product awareness.

Leading noodles brand Maggi sometime backannounced an open innovation
campaign where consumers were asked to share the ways in which they have
used Maggi in their lives. What was evident from this idea sharing
campaign was that people cooked and consumed Maggi not only as noodles
but also used them in other food preparation. Other than this, when the
ideas were shared in an TV ad along with the contributor’s name people
also got to know quick easy snack ideas that was tasty and not time
consuming. Through this open innovation Maggi established a better
audience connect by making people realize that their ideas count.

In today’s fast expanding and competitive economy it is very crucial to
understand the pulse of your target and potential consumers.
Enterprises who are able to master this art are the leaders in their
segment. The best way to go ahead with this is through innovative idea
management campaigns and open innovation.