The face of today’s workforce is changing, fast.

Is your background screening program keeping up?

Workplace diversity is more than a buzzword among today’s employers; it’s a “mindset” according to a recent LinkedIn Global Recruiting Trends 2018. In fact, 78 percent of talent leaders and hiring managers rank it as the most important trend shaping the future of recruiting and hiring—more important than data and artificial intelligence. Here we explore the impact it’s already having on the American workforce, and ideas for updating and evolving your employment screening process to better align with this exciting new trend.

Today’s workplace: a reflection of society

The workplace often mirrors the broader national population, and U.S. demographics are changing. In 2017, the percent of foreign-born workers in the U.S. labor market grew to 17.1 percent from 16.9 percent in 2016, up from 13.3 percent in 2000. By the year 2045, the country’s racial profile will be more diverse than ever with Hispanic, African-American, Asian and multiracial populations becoming the majority, according to a recent article from the Brookings Institution.

Hiring managers get it. According to the LinkedIn report, 78 percent say the main reason they’re focused on hiring diversity is to improve company culture, while 62 percent are doing it to improve company performance. Nearly half, 49 percent, say that more diverse hiring practices will better reflect the customers they serve.

It’s time to screen a little differently

As employees become more diverse and multicultural, companies of all sizes should consider making a few background screening adjustments to create a more candidate-friendly process that also helps mitigate employee-related risk. Here are a few quick ideas.

· Integrate global background checks. Candidates are more mobile than ever before, and frequently move to other countries for new jobs. It’s critical to not only perform background checks in their current country of residence, but also in other countries where they have lived or worked. Experienced screening providers can seamlessly integrate global and domestic background checks into a centralized program. This can help simplify the candidate experience by providing a single interface for all background screening forms and consents, while also helping to streamline program administration and compliance management. Speaking of compliance, it can be a bear to manage on a global scale, so inquire about automated compliance capabilities to ensure your company is performing permissible searches in other countries.

 

· Offer multilanguage online candidate engagement. Many enterprise organizations have been doing this for years, but today it’s important for smaller and mid-sized businesses to remove language barriers so they can better engage with top talent from all cultures and backgrounds. From websites and applicant tracking systems to background screening platforms, make it as easy as possible for the best candidates to find and engage with your organization by speaking their language.

 

From an operational perspective, always make sure these multilingual platforms can easily integrate with each other and return accurate, consolidated candidate insights back to your organization.

 

The face of today’s workforce changing, fast. As recruiters and hiring managers improve hiring diversity, they must also consider modifying, and potentially expanding, the employment screening process to better attract and support multicultural candidates and employees. At First Advantage, we’re here to help. We specialize in building robust employment screening programs for organizations of all sizes. Please get in touch with any questions or concerns.