How To Reduce Hiring Risk: 5 Risk Mitigation Methods

Perform a Background and Reference Check

To ensure you aren’t putting your company at risk by hiring problematic employees, perform background checks. Run reference checks to verify the information candidates include about their educational background, work history, and more on their resumes. Checking references will show that they have the appropriate work performance and experience needed to fill the job position. Moreover, background checks on a candidate’s criminal history will ensure you’re hiring trustworthy candidates who match your company’s expectations. Skipping these steps in the hiring process is risky and could affect the company.

Paw Vej, Financer.com Ltd

Limit New Employee Access to Company Systems

I have always stressed the importance of security when hiring new employees. The most important security measure is limiting a new hire’s access to your company’s systems. I have seen small companies with no security on their backend data get compromised by new hires who steal this data and exploit it. When it comes to cybersecurity, it is vital to limit a new employee’s access until enough time has passed to establish trust.

Eric Florence, Security Tech

Ensure All Relevant Parties Are Included

Another vital method for reducing hiring risk is ensuring that internal hiring processes are documented and communicated to relevant parties. The hiring of employees is often a group effort, involving management, HR, IT, and Security. All parties need to be clear on process dependencies and what their role is:

• HR must know how to request IT access for the new hire
• IT needs to know what documents are required to be completed before provisioning access (contract, NDA, etc.)
• Security needs to verify that the assigned access levels are appropriate, etc.

A single break in the process chain can cause legal, compliance, and security issues later down the road.

Alex Esposito, InfoMart’s Information Security Manager

Set Clear Metrics of Expectations to Reduce Risk

After an extensive interview process, it is easy to place the blame on a new hire if it does not work out. However, if businesses want to reduce risk, it is imperative that they take some responsibility by setting clear expectations. There are often gaps in information during the onboarding process, which can create confusion for a new hire. This lack of information paves the way for mistakes, including security mistakes, to be made.

Approaching the onboarding process by surveying current employees, checking for pitfalls in training, asking new hires questions to gauge their understanding, and using metrics to measure expectations can greatly decrease any confusion. Take responsibility for the quality of onboarding and create clear and measurable expectations for a new hire. This is necessary not only to reduce risk but also to set your new hire up for success.

Yuvi Alpert, Noémie

Expand Your Background Checks

With the increasing amount of information on social media platforms, you can learn more and more about a person through their profiles on Instagram, Facebook, and especially LinkedIn. Scanning the profiles of potential candidates for risky behavior is a good way to get rid of some concerns and help you prepare for the recruitment processes. Keep in mind: it’s important to check social media through a trusted third party to remain compliant. Read more about the best practices for social media background checks here.

Magdalena Sadowska, Passport Photo Online

With these tips, you can strengthen your risk mitigation efforts. Taking the time to mitigate risk at the time of hire will open the door for your business to focus more on its mission and less on damage recovery. Hiring smart begins with getting a full picture of your candidates, which begins with background checks, reference checks, social media screening, and more. At InfoMart, we have over 30 years of experience in the background screening industry, and we constantly adapt to stay up-to-date with compliance updates and screening trends. Learn more about the services we offer and the InfoMart difference here.

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