Technology
If you want to know what’s new in the world of human resources look no further than South Australia. Businesses here are moving on with the times and embracing the latest technology. This not only makes their work more efficient, but also easier.
Take, for instance, background checks. Instead of using the traditional method of sending the job applicants to their local police station, HR managers in South Australia increasingly opt for online police checks.
Here’s how it goes:
What are online background checks?
The life of HR software employees has become so much easier since the apparition of online character check agencies. It’s the same thing as applying for your criminal record at the police station, but you do it online and these are private agencies, so they have both the technology and the personnel to answer to your request so much faster.
Online background check services are accredited with the government (Crimtrac). In South Australia (SA), when you order an SA police check on a future employee, their name will be run through all the databases at their disposal. That way, you can find out if a job applicant based in Canberra has ever committed an offence in Sydney or Adelaide.
To sum it up, criminal police checks run through online service providers are 100% valid.
How do South Australia employers use online criminal history checks?
As you are probably aware, under Australian law, background checks are mandatory fcr jobs in healthcare, the legal system, or for people working with children or vulnerable adults,
However, it’s not just these types of businesses that now use online character check agencies. A growing number of private businesses in various economic domains have implemented routine police checks for all their employees. They are not mandated to do so, but they realized it pays to do so.
Background checks allow companies to screen for dangerous elements. Nobody wants to employ people who served time for theft, sexual crimes or other serious offences. It’s bad for the company, it puts all your workforce in danger and you risk finding yourself engulfed in a public scandal. And that’s always bad for business.
Obviously, Australian laws prohibit discrimination based on a candidate’s criminal history. According to the law, you cannot refuse employment based on the criminal history of an individual if their offence is not relevant to the job. But in many cases, it is.
For instance, if you’re looking to hire a supervisor and the candidate has been convicted for stalking, domestic violence or sexual abuse, you can totally reject their application if they’re going to be in charge of a department full of women. And so on.
South Australian employers understand the intricacies of the law and know how to use police checks to their advantage. And, it’s so easy to get a background check when all you have to do is type a few words on an online form and you know you get the results in a couple of days,
