Navigating Australia’s Employment Screening Minefield: Criminal History Checks
Congratulations! Your organisation has decided to introduce a compulsory background check for those new and existing employees. Good idea! Now what?
With the amount of screening possibilities, what should Human Resource and Security Departments be going after to make sure their screening procedures are meeting their industry’s requirements and community expectations?
• 1 in 5 have Dealing with Children Check Holders have criminal histories
• 1 in 5 data breaches is caused by malicious insiders
• 1 in 4 coming from all complaints received with the Australian Human Rights Commission were on the basis of criminal history discrimination.
National Police Checks (NPCs) are the garden variety “go-to” screen plus your insurance provider will reward you with a reassuring nod. However, here are a couple things worth your consideration to ensure a stressful discrimination claim is not on the horizon.
1. The Job Advertisement should clearly state that a NPC background check is required to the role. (eg. “Candidates will need to go through a background screen and become awarded a favourable Suitability Qualification.”). If you go for only a basic NPC you will should add words like “those people who have police records will not be automatically barred from applying”
2. OK, let’s say that you now have the Candidate that could be ideal for the task, though the NPC has come back with a Disclosable Court Outcome (DCO).
3. Now your beefed up “security background investigations checking department” must thoroughly check out criminal records past. Preferably staff must have a personnel vetting qualification and experience. As the Humans Rights Commission has stated, your new department has to take into account the following factors:
• the seriousness of the conviction or offence and (as mentioned) its relevance to the job in question
• whether with regards to the offence there was a finding of guilt but without conviction, which indicates a less serious take a look at the offence with the courts
• the chronilogical age of the candidate once the offences occurred
• the length of time since the offence occurred
• whether the candidate includes a pattern of offences
• the circumstances in which the offence took place, by way of example when it was an offence that took place in the work, domestic or personal context
• whether the applicant’s circumstances have changed since the offence was committed (by way of example, past drug use)
• whether the offence has become decriminalised by Parliament or it was an offence overseas however, not nationwide
• the attitude of the job applicant on their previous offending behaviour
• references from people that understand about the offending history.
4. Remember, the more information that you just obtain, the greater the likelihood that one could exercise reasonable judgment in assessing the link between the criminal history and also the inherent requirements of the job. However, you ought to know that extra scrutiny places added pressures around the Candidates.
For more information go to https://www.humanrights.gov.au/publications/human-rights-record-contents
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It gives you a standalone vetting check that is recognised as a possible Organisational Suitability Assessment Screening Qualification.
Cleard.life is business unit associated with an Australian national security vetting agency leader, Crown Vetting. Cleard.life allows organisations to access exactly the same suitability standard checks put on national security clearances, but a 100-fold faster and a fraction of the cost. Exactly the same methodology that government vetting agencies use to look for the suitability of your person to access to SECRET and TOP SECRET info is now at the disposal of HR Professionals, Recruiters & Employers.
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