Is Your Company’s Hiring Compliance Plan Up to Date? 10 Aug 2016

The competitive landscape for hiring top talent is tough.

Now more than ever, employers are turning to advanced hiring strategies, like broadening their sourcing scope and hiring outside their industry to attract and retain the best applicants for the job.

All the while, companies are refusing to back down on their hiring compliance standards with many bolstering their current compliance regulations to meet or exceed the steady rollout of new employment laws.

Here are 4 top trends used by innovative companies to attract and retain top talent,  without sacrificing compliance.

Trend #1: Workplace Safety Becomes a Winning Strategy for Retaining Top Talent

The recent wave of workplace violence and identity theft have opened the eyes of prospective employees.

Highly educated and talented professionals are now asking hiring managers more interesting questions like, “What is your safety plan in the event of workplace violence?” and “What is your policy on hiring individuals with a criminal background?”

Candidates realize they put their credit and their life at risk every time they enter the building, and they want to know what you plan to do to keep them safe.

While Fortune 500s were the original on-boarders of safety plans, now even small companies are starting to break new ground, holding monthly safety meetings and creating committees that focus on workplace safety.

Trend #2: Background Checks Performed as Employees Move Up the Chain

As the hiring landscape becomes more competitive, many employers are looking for ways to promote within,  primarily by providing internal training opportunities.

The Reason Why: $3.7 trillion dollars, or 5% of the average company’s revenue migrates into the pockets of white collar criminals each year (Association of Certified Fraud Examiners).

With white collar crime becoming more prevalent, many companies are choosing to complete a new criminal history background check to look for incidents that occurred during employment prior to extending an offer for advancement.

Additional white collar crime prevention trends include providing fraud awareness and whistle blower hotlines, surprise audits and running periodic background checks on all existing employees.

 Trend #3: Leaders More Strict About Running Employment Checks Prior to Hiring

A recent study by the Society of Human Resources revealed that more than 58% of applicants lied on their resume, and another by the same group shows how replacing a bad employee costs 6 to 9 months of their salary in ‘recruitment costs’, that’s at least $40,000 of your $80,000 employees’ salary.

While this may seem small at first, the impact it creates to your bottom line is noticeable.

When you hire a less capable employee they cost more to train and take longer to get up to speed, not to mention the lost time.

 Trend #4: Hiring Managers Moving Away from Instinct-Based, and “Personality Hiring” Recruitment Methods, Toward Turning Data into Recruiting Intelligence

For decades the trend toward personality and instinct-based hiring decisions were considered a wise choice because hiring managers want to work with the candidate who feels like the best fit; the one they can work with side by side, day in and day out.

Now that hiring managers have access to large, specific pools of data on top candidates, finding the best performance and personality match is easier than ever.

Sarah Brennan, CEO of talent advisory firm Accelir recently told a group of HR representatives, “I know this is a scary thing for HR to hear, but for too long HR has gotten a pass on lacking analytics because it’s a ‘people person’ job or the technology to do it wasn’t affordable. In 2016, neither are valid.”