Survey results support decision to propose a standard for employment screening in Switzerland

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Survey results support decision to propose a standard for employment screening in Switzerland

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Highlights

  • A survey was broadcasted to establish best practices in employment screening in Switzerland.
  • 58% of the respondents indicated to support the establishment of a swiss standard.
  • Integrity is considered as the most important human risk to be mitigated by employment screening.
  • 68% of the respondent’s organisations have established a list of sensitive functions.
  • 52% of respondents have implemented enhanced recruitment policies and selection procedures.
  • The report makes 5 recommendations to include best employment screening practices in a new swiss standard for job related proficiency assessments.

Introduction

Initiated by a request from the Swiss Federation for Psychologists (FSP), the Swiss Association for Standardisation (SNV) has set up an interdisciplinary national project (within the existing national standards committee INB/NK 3168) to develop a standard for the implementation of job-related proficiency assessment in Switzerland. The aim is to create a Swiss reference service norm and to establish a best practice that will ensure the best possible outcomes for job related proficiency assessments as well as transparency and equal treatment for candidates that are the subject of such assessments.

The company Aequivalent, Switzerland’s largest provider and digital platform for employment screening, has decided to participate to bring in the risk management view to this interdisciplinary project and contribute with its expertise in employment screening and (human) risk management.

In the period from October 2021 to March 2022, a survey was broadcasted through the SNV’s network, and interviews were conducted in collaboration with Aequivalent in order to collect further empirical data about employment screening in Switzerland, from stakeholders at public authorities, NGOs, NPOs, industry and commerce.

The survey was received by 882 Swiss based public and private organisations that are operating within diverse industries. The results reported below allowed to better analyse the most common (best) practices in employment screening from a human risk mitigation perspective and the support for the establishment of a standard.

Survey results

42 organisations responded to the survey, of which 48% considers that they are currently subject to human risk related regulations.

Although 56% of respondents consider their policies and procedures for pre-employment screening as “good” or “excellent”, 78% of respondents has had one or several bad experiences with hiring.

58% of respondents would appreciate a standard for employment screening, 42% replied that they may be interested, 0% of respondents were not interested.

Best practices in employment screening

The Human Resources department is held responsible for employment screening in most organisations, whereas the Risk Management, Security and Compliance departments are most often requested to play a “supportive” role.

From the 5 listed human risks that need to be mitigated during employment screening, it is (a lack of) integrity which most often selected as “very important”. The absence of qualifications or the presence of conflicts of interest follow.

68% of the respondent’s organisations have established a list of sensitive functions. Within regulated organisations that responded, this percentage amounts to 90%. Access to financial resources, decision making powers and legal responsibility are the top 3 elements that define a position as “at risk”. Access to strategic infrastructure, access to client data and security related functions follow closely and are considered at risk by more than two thirds of the organisations that responded.

80% of respondents has policies or procedures in place to mitigate human risk. Most often, these policies concern the implementation of enhanced recruitment and selection procedures (52%), followed, at some distance, by whistleblowing (24%) and enhanced internal control procedures (14%).

78% of respondents has formalised their policies and procedures and 58% of respondents apply them also to external contractors or consultants.

Diplomas and qualifications (76%), criminal records (61%), former employers (59%) and financial probity (37%) are most often systematically verified during pre-employment screening. Public internet presence, ancillary activities (conflicts of interests) and employment gaps are sometimes to often verified as well. In order to be able verify these elements correctly, 71% of respondent organisations verify the identity and current address (59%) of the candidate. The address history is verified rarely (which exposes these organisations to integrity risks).

Criminal record extracts, financial probity documents, work permits, former employers and diplomas and qualifications are most often verified at the source. For ancillary activities, activities during employment gaps and driving records is more often relied on documents or employee declarations (which exposes these organisations to integrity risks).

During reference checks at former employers, the reasons for leaving (69%), performance (69%) and responsibilities (63%) are most often verified. Job title, start- and end date, personality as well as potential integrity or disciplinary related procedures are verified systematically in more than 40% of the organisations.

The formal obtention of the diploma (72%) is checked most systematically during diploma checks. The official diploma title (55%), corresponding academic level (52%) and start- and end date (45%) are verified systematically in more than 40% of the organisations.

During e-reputation (internet) checks, the absence of discriminatory remarks (73%) and confidential information disclosure (68%) are most often indicated as «very important» elements to check during employment screening. The absence of problematic content (54%), inconsistencies with CV (48%) and being part of controversial groups (48%) are considered as very important by more than 40% of the organisations as well.

Additional elements of importance

49% of respondents has a process of re-screening in place after persons have joined the organisation: 20% for all roles in the organisation and 29% for part of the roles. Re-screening is most commonly done every 2 to 3 years. The most verified elements during a re-screening are criminal records (90%), financial probity (80%) and ancillary activities (60%). Address and public internet presence are verified by more 40% of the organisations during rescreening.

In terms of data protection of employee and candidate data, 95% of the participating companies indicate they comply with the Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection (FADP) while 32% comply with the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). A majority of 80% of respondents, answered that their organization maintains a code of conduct. Only 10% of the organisation maintains a certification in information security currently.

Conclusions and recommendations

The survey results support the initiative to integrate aspects for employment screening in the Swiss adoption of the German standard DIN 33430 Job related proficiency assessment and give a good indication of what elements are considered as most important or best practice in employment screening in Switzerland.

Based on the survey results, the report proposes :

  • To integrate the human risk management perspective and best practices in employment screening in the new Swiss standard for job related proficiency assessments.
  • To prescribe the establishment of a list of sensitive functions within each organisation, as a function of their exposure to the organisation’s strategic (most important) human risks.
  • To use the list of sensitive functions as a reference to define the application of (different levels of) standardised employment screening programmes during the job related proficiency assessments.
  • To include the verification of integrity (76% of respondents consider this as a very important human risk element) as a standard verification during job related proficiency assessments for highly sensitive functions. This can be done through the document analysis method which is specifically mentioned in the standard.
  • The establishment and use of a standard checklist in order to comply with regulations and best practices in terms of employee experience, data protection and information security during employment screening for job related proficiency assessments.

For more information on the survey results, please contact info@aequivalent.ch or T +41 24 524 30 02. If you would like to actively participate or know more about the development of the standard, please contact lea.leibundgut@snv.ch.

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    Image credits : www.freepik.com

    Date of publication : 07.02.2023

    Author: Aequivalent’s Marketing and Sales team