Ninety percent of American companies perform background checks for their full time employees, but many of them are not as diligent about performing background checks on their temporary workers as they should be. 
 

A higher proportion of temporary workers are being sought after for highly skilled, professional areas (such as finance, legal, education and engineering) than ever before. These kinds of temporary workers often work virtually unsupervised in your facilities on a daily basis, dealing with your clients and handling your intellectual property. As a result, it’s imperative that companies choose candidates they can trust and that can perform the tasks required of them to a high standard. 
 

Choosing not to perform pre-employment background checks could lead to some serious potential issues for your company; most commonly of all, hiring someone whose actual level of academic and work based experience doesn’t match the level of experience outlined in their resume.
 

Temporary workers are usually expected to “hit the ground running” and deliver quality work in a time sensitive situation, so hiring someone with inadequate skills could seriously damage your company’s reputation. 
 

Research found that fifty three percent of job applications contain misleading information and sixteen percent of executive resumes contain false academic claims or omissions. Just recently, this issue led to the demise of Yahoo’s former CEO Scott Thompson, whose four month tenure at the company came to a bitter end over this issue. 
 

Unfortunately, pre-employment background checks often throw up even more serious issues such as employee theft, violence and drug abuse. Ten percent of background checks contain at LEAST one serious red flag and – almost unbelievably - workplace violence accounts for eighteen percent of all violent crime. 
 

Also, an incredible thirty percent of all business failures are caused by employee theft and yet another thirty percent of all IT sabotage cases are caused by employees with criminal records that existed prior to their employment.
 

Performing background checks on your temporary workers will help you improve the quality of your temporary workforce, get more value for money and help you protect your brand, your people and your profits. Don’t skimp on the basics just because you’re anxious to onboard your temporary workers and get the job done – it could end up costing you more than you think. 
 

Check out the full infographic by Proforma Screening Solutions here

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