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Guest blog by Amiqus
The UK Government is introducing a new set of standards to support right to work and criminal record checks being done digitally. In line with this, DBS and the Home Office are bringing in legislation from September, which means you will need to go back to meeting candidates and checking right to work documentation in person or use an accredited digital identity provider to do the checks digitally.
With this in mind, recruitment and staffing businesses have a few months to start engaging with digital providers or go back to meeting all candidates.
But these changes should be viewed as a positive for your business. Partnering with digital identity providers has been evidenced to provide a number of benefits. Not only is digital identity verification a secure way of verifying and storing candidate data, it has also been proved to save time, effort and money. Implementing these changes will mean you get candidates vetted and onsite faster, in a more secure manner, all while providing a better onboarding experience to your candidates.
At the moment, you might be asking your candidates to email or post their documents, to make a trip to your office, or even to hold up their documents over a zoom call.
The sudden acceleration in people adopting online services, coupled with a gradual, but growing increase in public awareness of their data privacy rights, means that being told that you need to show up to an office in person －or that you need to get to the post office to send copies of your documents －is no longer the news candidates of any age want to hear.
Not only have candidate expectations changed, but these processes pose a huge security risk to them and to your organisation. Manually verifying documents in such a way is incredibly non-secure, it causes you to waste unnecessary amounts of time, not to mention they are no longer practical in a hybrid/remote world.
Adjusting your business models in a strategic rather than a reactionary way, you will have the best chance of succeeding during the transition and long after.
Since the pandemic hit we’ve witnessed the biggest financial institutions in the world execute ten year digital transformation plans in a matter of days. We’ve seen century-old food manufacturers offer direct-to-consumer delivery for the first time in their existence. We’ve seen local bars and restaurants completely transform their business models to adhere to social distancing. And we’ve seen older generations embracing the Zoom boom and video calling their friends and family.
What does this tell us? It tells us that people are much more adaptable than we give them credit for. It tells us that implementing meaningful, powerful change is cheaper, easier and quicker than we’ve been led to believe.
Candidates expect a fully digital process. They want to engage with organisations who are forward thinking. Regardless of what your organisation chooses to do, this framework is not going away and if you’re not a part of the digital ecosystem, you will be left behind.
By using digital technology, you can streamline and improve your internal processes and ensure better security and a faster turnaround. Amiqus is a digital tool that automates the full pre-employment check process and allows you to onboard your candidate in minutes.
It allows you to quickly verify right to work and proof of address, run any sanctions and credit checks, as well as basic, standard and enhanced DBS checks. Maximising efficiency, it also enables you to gather any other documentation and personal details you may require, and lets you send onward any contracts or other documentation to your clients.
The Scottish Government People Directorate manages around 3,000 new hires every single year. Across the Scottish Government bodies, that number grows to more than 10,000.
Amiqus has reduced the time taken to complete the entire pre-employment process by 80%, from 5.5 weeks to 7 days
NHS Business Services Authority supported the ‘bringing back staff’ initiative for the Covid vaccine rollout. Tens of thousands of people were recruited using the Amiqus software to manage right to work checks.
There is a misconception that making the change to digital will cost organisations a lot of money. However, that couldn’t be further from the truth. By transforming your processes into the streamlined digital way, you will be able to significantly reduce the amount of time and money it takes to complete the onboarding process.
This is a guest blog contribution for the REC website. The views expressed by guest writers reflect the individual's personal opinions.
With Amiqus, Accredited UK Government standard digital RTW checks start from £2 per Check and ensure you have a digital solution up and ready when changes fully come.
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