Employee Screening

Investigations by Indian intelligence and law enforcement authorities into recent incidents of financial misappropriation by staff of technology companies have revealed that most India based IT and BPO companies are culpable of inadequate background screening initiatives. These lapses arise primarily out of the hiring pressures in this industry where quality and diligence often take a back seat.

India’s technology industry platform, NASSCOM, has launched a voluntary data submission initiative by workers of the IT industry but results have not been very encouraging. Of the million plus workers in this industry, not even a hundred thousand have registered.

In a particular incident of an employee of an MNC bank’s back office who defrauded the bank’s UK based clients, the Bangalore police concluded that the compromised employee was in fact associated with a terrorist group and had concocted his educational documents to secure a job with the bank. Interestingly, his earlier employer (a large US IT services & consulting company) had also let him in through the door despite having multiple third party background screening vendors.

There have also been unconfirmed reports of sympathizers of terrorist groups having infiltrated some reputed technology companies in south India.

All leading HR consultants in India are agreed that a significant portion of resumes in the technology industry are exaggerated, if not totally fake.

TACT has created a separate specialist business unit, TRACE which operates their proprietary “Credential Verification Program” to sharpen its focus on the employee screening business. More details on the business model and capabilities of TRACE are available by following the link www.traceverification.com

In the main, TRACE does not rely on sketchy public Indian databases or public sources to establish the credentials of a potential hire. In the absence of an equivalent of a Social Security Number, a majority of Indian nationals are generally not easily traceable. Only 2.6% of the population are tax payers due to the all pervasive tax evasion culture of the country which is in stark contrast to the demographics of more developed countries.

There are organized rackets for passports, election identity cards and driving licenses that make identity and address verification a significant challenge. TACT India therefore employs physical verification as a fail- safe model where essential.

 

________________