We’ve all seen the recent media coverage of airport queues, cancelled flights, and frustrated travellers. Airport operators are struggling to cope as millions of holidaymakers seize the opportunity to travel abroad in the wake of the pandemic. Many are calling it the summer of travel chaos – and it’s being fuelled by significant staff shortages.

But why is the aviation sector – and indeed other industries such as retail and hospitality – struggling to ramp headcount and reduce the pain? This recent article points to one major contributing factor: lengthy employee background checks.

Last month, representatives for Manchester Airport in the UK said they were trying to onboard 500 new staff yet due to background checks and security training only 200 of those were expected to start imminently. That represents a sixty percent blockage in their talent pipeline – and it’s creating havoc for companies and consumers alike.

So what can organisations do to speed up the hiring process, save costs, and ensure legislative compliance?

The solution lies in the digitalisation of employee screening – or more specifically, the eradication of semi-automated or even manual techniques that not only increase the risk of non-compliance but create a poor experience for both candidates and HR.

Irrespective of whether the organisation plans to outsource background checking to a managed service provider or lease the technology to use in-house, here are five key questions that HR needs to ask when searching for a viable provider:

1. Does the solution support pan-geographic compliance and align with cultural sensitivities?
In an ever more global world where pandemic-induced ‘Work From Anywhere’ policies are gaining rapid popularity, HR teams can cover their bases by engaging a solution that can screen people wherever they are in the world – and in a way that supports complete compliance. But to achieve this, that solution will need to aggregate data from a number of sources across different geographies. HR teams are well-advised to question how the provider can ensure the availability of that data, as well as how easily and cost-effectively it can be obtained.

That’s the minimum baseline but it’s only part of the wider solution, and ensuring alignment with cultural sensitivities is arguably just as important. Consider this: just because it’s legal to do a background check, doesn’t mean it’s necessarily culturally acceptable. Get it wrong in the United Arab Emirates, for example, and you’re likely to seriously offend your candidate. These nuances matter and they need to be built into the technology. You’re not only looking for a solution that works on a global scale (though that’s essential if you’re a multinational employer), but a ‘glocal’ solution that takes into account cultural norms and caters to them.

2. Is it agile and scalable?
If it’s taking you days to complete an employee background check, it’s time to seek a more agile solution. A tool that can support quick and easy integration, yes, but more than that, one that also makes the best of automation so that standard ‘right to work’ checks can be done instantly. It’s a point that begs the question: how many of those prospective airport workers have been waiting days, if not weeks, for such a simple check to be completed?

But hand-in-hand with this agility, we also need scalability. HR should be looking for a solution that can scale in line with organisational needs (think fluctuating airport worker headcounts) but one that also has the capacity to accommodate different time zones and flexible working schedules. These finer details are important – and for airport operators, they provide a tangible means of helping to unblock talent pipelines and onboard new staff.

3. Future proofing: as legislation evolves over time, how does the provider plan on enhancing its processes and access to data?
We’ve all borne witness to exponential change over the past two years so this is a key question to ask. The impact of macro-environmental events such as Brexit and Covid-19 (to name just two) are still being felt and will surely pave the way for more legislative change down the line. Because of this, HR needs to ensure that its background checking technology can flex to any and all of these evolving requirements.

The simple fact of the matter is this: digitalised screening will only support sustainably faster hiring times if it is both fit-for-purpose and future-proofed.

4. Does the solution comply with all relevant data protection laws?
Whether it’s the UK Data Protection Act, GDPR, or another country-specific variant, if your organisation operates in multiple markets, your background checking solution will need to ensure compliance with all relevant legislation.

And guess what? This is a really positive thing. As its name would suggest, data protection laws are designed to do just that: protect. But employee background checks are not only intended to protect the employer, they must also guarantee the security of the candidate’s personal information. That said, it’s important to do your homework and make sure the solution checks out: does it hold the globally recognised ISO27001 information security certification, for example? Is it an Identity Service Provider (IDSP) certified against the DCMS trust framework? This recently introduced accreditation forms part of the UK Government’s plan to make it faster for people to verify themselves using modern technology – and it’s a must-have for those that need to hire quickly while ensuring compliance.

5. Does it enable both pre- and post-employment screening?
Of course, in the modern working world, background checks are no longer a one-off occurrence that happen only at the point of hire. In many industries, employee verification has become a continuous process that people agree to as part of their ongoing employment contracts. For logistics and transport workers, this often involves intermittent driving record checks. For others – and particularly those in high security job roles – it might even extend to checking personal social media accounts, providing they have the employee’s full consent and knowledge.

This ability to support both pre- and post-employment screening is not only best practice but rather the standard practice to which most organisations now subscribe. It provides a crucial means of mitigating the so-called ‘insider threat’ that presents a growing problem for many industries, including the aviation sector.

By following the advice outlined above, HR and business leaders can demonstrably increase their average time to hire and keep the talent pipeline moving whilst reducing risk and removing much of the administrative burden that elevates cost and harms the candidate experience.