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Use Police Checks And Background Screening To Reduce Workplace Fraud

By: Colin Banfield

HR policies within your business are part of an essential strategy to make certain that short-listing practices are achieving suitable outcomes for your organisation. However, in our discussions with business owners, we are often concerned at how many otherwise capable managers do not insist on police checks and ignore the risks that they incur when bringing people inside their organisation.

You have a duty of care for the security and well-being of your existing staff when recruiting permanent, contractor or temporary staff. Your senior management also expect that you will act in the long-term best interests of your organisation. Police checks are an integralfirst step in this process.

The direct cost of white collar crime and fraud to Australian businesses accounts for billions of dollars each year and the largest contributor to these costs is fraud. It has been reported by The Australia Institute of Criminology that fraud contributed 40% of the crime related losses experienced by businesses in 2005. Surveys of fraudulent incidents reported by organisations quote the typical cost per incident at approximately $36,000 for minor fraud and nearly $1 million for serious fraud cases.

This sum only takes into account the direct loss of property or funds and does not consider other indirect costs including the time expended responding to the episode, disturbance of business systems as they are being made fraud-proof, or the expense of re-hiring and training replacement staff.

A well publicised policy of pre-employment screening and, in particular, requesting police checks, will act as a discouragement to would be fraudsters from forwarding their application. However,this also relies on the company actually implementing their stated policy and our experience is that many convicted felons will still apply for a highly desirable position despite having an existing record on the possibility that the employer will not actually do police checks.

Our counsel to business owners is that they should be conducting police checks universally for all prospective employees. Unfortunately, there is an increased chance that someone with a criminal past will re-offend. Economically, it makes no more sense to forego police checks than it does to neglect insurance on your business.We advise companies to standardise on the practice of conducting police checks without exception for all prospective employees. The price paid by the victim of crime versus the price of prevention should be a persuasive argument when you consider the data or the social impact of the fraud within their company. Economically, it is just as risky to forego police checks as it is to let insurance cover on your business lapse.Unfortunately, there is a high statistical likelihood that a person with a criminal past will re-offend. Our suggestion to business owners is that they should be conducting police checks universally for all prospective employees. In terms of your bottom line, a small outlay in police checks before employing a new employee can help to protect your company from significant losses.

You should consider the convenience and flexibility of your solution when choosing how to conduct police checks. A skilled employment verification company can provide online ordering and provision of police checks. You should also keep in mind that your use of the reports from a police check is governed by the Privacy Act within Australia so the system you turn to for checks should also be able to cater for secure and confidential distribution of results with your management team.

Police checks are straightforward, fast and easy to obtain with an applicant's consent. They are a cost effective essential step in preventing criminal activity within your organisation.

Article Source: http://www.newarticleseek.com

{CVCheck conducts Australian police checks and all other background checks across a wide range of industries.|CVCheck provides pre employment screening and verification services including Australian police checks to many of Australia's leading organisations. |CVCheck works with many of Australia's major companies to provide screening and verification services including police checks. } CVCheck's state of the art technology means that you can order online simply and quickly and get access to view and print your results from anywhere in the world.

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