Ankita has over 22 years of progressive experience in managing and leading various aspects of Human Resources spanning across high paced business domains of ITES. Ankita holds a PhD in Management and is a Gold Medalist in BBA as well as MBA. She has done HR and Business Strategy related Executive Management Programmes from IIM-A, ISB- Hyderabad and XLRI. She is a certified PPA (Thomas Profiling) Practitioner.

Some facts before proceeding:
· 75% of employers caught a lie on a resume. (Career-Builder, 2018)
· Employment check remains the highest source of discrepancy among different types of background checks. (AuthBridge,2019)
· Eight out of 100 candidates lie or misinform during job application (AuthBridge,2020)

When hiring goes wrong, it staggers the foundation and defeats the overall purpose. Researches exemplify that bad hires can cost up to 5/6 times their annual salary, and no organization would ever want to settle on that route, not even in dreams.

The transformation witnessed recently has inflated competition and made it more difficult than ever for candidates to get their dream job, provoking candidates to polish their resume with fake credentials to get noticed and hired. Now, the tenured employee is not the only stream; there are con-tract workers, gig workers, consultants, and teleworkers. Therefore, the rules of background screening have also seen drastic modifications.

The core team can't verify every-thing as a part of the internal process, and that's where inclusion or introduction of stringent Background screening comes into the picture. The vital most step when choosing people to be employed and examining the eligibility and skill is verifying the candidate's background. Undoubtedly, we talk about TRUST as the essential pillar of any organization's culture. However, as a caveat to ensure congruity and symmetry in the system, a well-structured verification method should be devised and exercised with the ultimate sensitivity and responsiveness. 'Trust, but verify'- a Russian proverb 'Doveryai, no proveryai,' holds immense importance in a world today where VIRTUAL is the new REAL.

Background Verification holds enormous importance as PEOPLE make or break the system. One bad or wrong hire can disrupt and affect the entire arrangement and the process to a level that can take longer than judged to realize the loss in terms of effort, money, and time.

A typical background check assembles information about a person from public and private databases using their name, birthday, and qualification, and family background. Is that sufficient? Is the process accurate? We are worried about the criminal background of our candidate and employee at the start of their journey with our respective organizations but are we tolerable if they indulge themselves in any such activity later? At least, that's what most organizations are projecting through the standard process followed by them. I have personally seen organizations practicing either pre-hiring or post (immediate)-hiring process. We all agree that every new day leads to new challenges or opportunities. Despite all the vetting, each employee carries a certain level of unknown risk. Various determinants influence individuals' life developments, and multiple events keep happening, and for this very reason, the background verification process should be continuous or at least periodic in nature.

A Continuous process will give better governance on resources' entire life-cycle. Organizations will be able to analyze, review, define and develop plans encompassing each depending on the then history of each individual. If done at the appropriate time accurately, it helps organizations in extensive ways. To quote a few:

Background Verification holds enormous importance as PEOPLE make or break the system

· Know your employees: It facilitates organizations to re-new themselves with the newest information about the employees to weigh strategies before deciding the same for the individual/team/organization.

· Personalized Initiatives: A continuous program enables organizations to compose initiatives as per an individual's current scenario, be it relevant to promotion, additional profile, termination, or retention.

· Credibility: Pre-hiring verification process will not endure lifelong pertinence. The standing on day one, which was green, may convert to red after a certain period. CRED-IBILITY can be maintained and sustained by executing the process as a continuous one.

· Keep the best: It facilitates filter the best from the rest. It is an obtainable task to measure and devise the most dependable fitment disposition for the individuals and designate suitably with a continuous process.

· Culture: It's not just the hiring and firing of the wrong re-sources as an action or reaction that induces perplexity. The impression is much more significant; the Company's culture receives destructive impact as there is a more substantial probability that bad hires will influence and manipulate people and processes in the most grotesque fashion.

· It Prevents Liability: If organizations do not conduct a background check, they could be held liable for their care-lessness. The ongoing reviews of the tenured employees help to avoid any unanticipated and abrogating legal surprises.

· It Ensures the Workplace's Safety: Bad hires can trigger workplace unrest, violence, disturbance, harassment, and damage. If organizations fail to identify miscreants, they can indeed get pitched to the bottom!

Background check is now hygiene. All the fraud menaces can get restrained, if not eliminated, using a structured back-ground verification process. Time has dramatically changed at a light striking speed, and organizations should take a mighty shift to adapt to the need of the hour. Incorporation and deliberation of digital processes and documents, online screening tools, collaborative approach for social media, and cross-company verifications, audits, and reliance on authentic external agencies, should be thoughtfully introduced in the core process to minimize the risk of having discrepant selves in the system.

The unprecedented circumstances have reframed all the definitions linked to the way of work, workforce, and place of work. The changes are so dramatic and scattered that no single theorem can get organizations the best solution. A more personalized, flexible, nimble, and digital verification system is a necessity of today. A significant shift from the conventional method is the demand to meet the need of the diverse world and to sustain gloriously.

As Albert Einstein said, “Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters.” To have a reliable team in place, one should have a reliable system placed.