Agero Insights

Background checks – a business’ way of verifying that an individual is who they say they are – are essential not only for workplace and consumer safety, but in ensuring your team is hiring the right talent. It is therefore critical to develop a program that delivers the insights you and your team need in a timely manner, and that is legally compliant and conducted in accordance with continually evolving regulations. Ensuring this can be complicated. How do you balance compliance and fairness at scale and cut through the noise to determine what actually matters? This post provides insights into what background checks are, why they are important, and how the right background check provider benefits Agero’s clients, consumers, and our independent contractors.

What is a background check?

A background check is intended to create a safe workplace and to protect against liability exposure. The process involves the collection and verification of a person’s information from private and public sources.

The background investigation is conducted based on criteria – such as past employment, education, driving record, criminal history, and other variables – that can vary across businesses, based on their or their clients’ specific needs. It is important to note that running a background check on the basis of an individual’s race, sex, religion, disability, national origin, color, genetic information, or age is illegal.

Why are background checks important?

Background checks are intrinsic to many organizations’ hiring planning processes, especially in highly regulated industries such as healthcare, where background checks are a legal requirement. They are critical in determining that individuals seeking to work with or for your company are representing themselves accurately and provide you with a basis for assessing whether or not an employee or independent contractor is trustworthy or could pose a threat to others.

As an emergency services business, with third-party contractors in the towing and roadside industry, providing consumer support at all hours of the day and night, safety is of the utmost importance. As part of our onboarding of these third-party suppliers, we require that each be vetted with a background check, as well as other risk management assessments. Additionally, we rely on background checks as part of our review process for our internal employees.

Benefits of A Streamlined Background Check Process

Compliance and Risk Mitigation
Parties involved in the hiring and contracting processes need to ensure they are compliant with the latest laws and industry regulations when it comes to how information is handled. High profile data breaches affecting everyone from major retailers to global social media platforms have brought security and compliance to the forefront when choosing employment background check companies. It is important to partner with a company that both understands the criticality of running compliant background checks and that is also able to manage hiring surges.

Agero’s vendor, Checkr, keeps pace with changes to the laws and best practices surrounding compliance, helping Agero to meet compliance standards through a combination of technology and human review. Checkr’s AI-powered system provides individualized assessments and reportable records to help avoid compliance issues. Because laws change often and vary by region, Checkr and Agero also leverage dynamic regional workflows.

Speedier Candidate Experience
Candidate experience can often fall to the bottom of the hiring priority list, but it should be at the top. Each time a candidate drops out of the recruiting funnel because of a delay, it represents wasted budget and lost opportunities. Agero’s background check process works to get results as soon as possible to get our internal employees hired and our third-party contractors into our network of suppliers.

Data for Better Planning
Background check software can be a source of data on hiring trends, helping to inform workforce planning with more accurate employee volume and skill predictions. This data-driven workforce planning is more efficient and provides a better, more consistent experience for hiring teams. With Checkr, Agero is able to more strategically plan for internal hiring to support rapidly growing roadside needs for our clients and consumers.

Peace of Mind for Consumers, More Work for Contractors
Importantly, a strong background check process also provides consumers peace of mind, knowing that their assistance provider has done their due diligence in contracting with the towing and roadside businesses helping them when they need it most.