Part-time working is on the increase, with people choosing to either reduce the hours they work or combine one or more part time jobs to make up the equivalent of full-time hours. Companies also like hiring part time workers as it gives them more flexibility across the business year. While part time arrangements offer advantages for both workers and bosses, overlooking background screening procedures for part time employees can expose organisations to significant risks. If you’re a part time worker, or thinking about employing one, here’s what you need to know.
Increased Risks Associated with Part Time Employment
Evidence shows that part-time employees pose higher risks compared to their full-time counterparts. Part time workers might have fewer legal obligations and rights, and this makes handling issues like fraud or policy breaches far more challenging. Part time workers often do not have the same sense of loyalty to an employer as a full-time worker, and if they are not depending on a company for their entire income, this may make them more willing to commit fraud or theft against their employer.
Insufficient Screening Practices
Most companies have different screening practices for full-time and part-time hires. However, these differences can result in employing unqualified individuals for important roles. For example, not checking claimed academic or professional qualifications for a part time software engineer may lead to hiring people who are just not up to the job. Experts recommend that in these sorts of roles where qualifications and certification is critically important, the same checks are done on full time and part time workers.
Right to Work Checks
Pre-employment checks aren’t just about checking someone’s academic qualifications and making sure that they have not lied on their CV. By law, employers in the UK are legally required to make sure that anyone they employ is both in the UK legally and has the right to work here. This applies whether they are recruiting for a full-time position at 37.5 hours a week, or a part time position of 3 hours a week. The most common way of conducting these checks is by asking the candidate to bring a passport when they come for interview. The interviewer can then check nationality and confirm the right work permit or visa is in the passport for overseas workers.
Other Screening Processes
Organisations are advised to recognise the issues associated with not checking out part time workers in the same way as full-time workers and think about how to adjust their current procedures to take account of this. Manty organisations choose to work with an external third-party supplier to manage their identity checking and pre-employment checking processes to make things faster and more efficient.
The most common services offered to companies include:
- Identity checking
- Social media screening – looking at candidates’ social media feeds to check there is nothing to damage a company’s reputation.
- Employment reference checking
- Shortlisting candidates and presenting a list of suitable people for interview.
