Congratulations!  Your company is off the ground and running, and you find that you need to hire employees from the labor market to meet demand.  This is an exciting time in the life of an enterprise, but it is also a time to proceed with caution and care.  Perhaps you have heard parents warn their children about “stranger danger.”  Well, this warning can apply to businesses, too, as evidenced by a 2013 survey from CareerBuilder that revealed that 27 percent of United States employers who reported having made a bad hire lost more than $50,000 on just one poor hiring decision.

The same survey shows that more than half the businesses in the world’s ten largest economies reported being affected by hiring mistakes, and other sources estimate U. S. companies lose about $18 billion annually on poor hiring decisions.  Given the potential damage hiring mistakes can have on an organization, it is only prudent that employers take steps to protect themselves.

Ways in Which Pre-Employment Screening Practices Can Help Organizations

There are a number of ways in which pre-employment screening is beneficial to outfits in a host of different industries.  The following is a list of reasons why you will want to consider utilizing pre-employment screening as part of your hiring process:

Increased Productivity and Decreased Turnover:  Acquiring talent in today’s job market can be tough, but pre-employment background checks can help you weed out unqualified or risky workers while better allowing you to match qualified workers with positions that fit their skill sets.  This will lead to an increase in productivity for your company while leading to a decrease in potential problems that could ultimately create more friction in the work environment, which of course will lead to higher rates of turnover.  Higher rates of turnover lead to more time, money, and energy expended on new hiring and training, and if the same process is employed, the cycle may repeat itself all over again.

Greater Compliance with Regulations:  Many industries are heavily regulated at local, state, and federal levels.  Performing thorough background checks before hiring can help your organization ensure that regulations and guidelines are being met while you simultaneously strive to uphold your industry standards.

Decrease Risks of Negligent Hiring While Increasing Safety and Security:  Are you worried that your potential employee is high on something other than life?   Substance abuse screening can help reduce the risks of drug or alcohol abuse negatively impacting productivity and safety in the workplace.  Negligently hiring someone with a checkered or criminal past may leave your company vulnerable to misdeeds or liability lawsuits that could originate both within and outside your organization.  Monetary damages and fines incurred via your negligent employee’s actions can be devastating to your venture.

Pre-Employment Assessments that Work

Aside from checking resumes and references and using standard employment applications, criminal background checks, and drug screenings, there are a number of pre-employment testing options that can be used to help employers find the right employees.  Choosing the best ones for your enterprise is important.  Two that are proudly offered by Leadership Excellence are The Achiever and The Judgment Index.

The Achiever helps employers find appropriate matches for jobs by assessing potential employees’ cognitive aptitudes in six different arenas while also measuring ten different personality traits that relate to the open position.  The Judgment Index, which is only offered by a handful of professionally trained consultants in the entire nation, is a useful assessment both for pre-employment purposes and for detecting possible developmental needs of established employees.  This index is based on the science of value, known as axiology.  Based on the principle that good judgment leads to effective decision-making, this test measures the relationship of values to one’s discernment.

Greg L. Thomas, our professional business consultant, has decades of experience in management and business ownership. He is also one of only a handful of trained facilitators of The Judgment Index™ in the country. Contact Greg today to learn more about how The Judgment Index™ can benefit your organization.

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