Healthcare industry sees highest rise in discrepancy in background check during Q3: Report

The COVID-19 crisis brought the entire world to a standstill and organsations were forced to look out for alternative methods to continue with their business operations, it added.In the third quarter of 2020, alternative modes of verification in the employment component in sectors like e-commerce and logistics, insurance, manufacturing and pharma have increased in comparison to the second quarter, the report said.

Although there has been a rise in demand for healthcare workers amid the pandemic, the industry has witnessed the highest surge in background screening discrepancy during July-September at 27.4 per cent sequentially, according to a report. Background discrepancy is the inconsistent or fake information provided by the candidates during the recruitment process.

Cases of discrepancies in the healthcare industry surprisingly showed a higher discrepancy percentage of 27.4 per cent in the third quarter, way above than 14.6 per cent in the second quarter of 2020, according to the 'Trends Report' by background screening company First Advantage. The First Advantage Trends Report is based upon the company data on discrepancy across the sectors during the third quarter (July-September).

The report showed that sectors like manufacturing, banking, FMCG and retail have displayed background screening discrepancy percentages higher than the industry average of 9.4 per cent in the third quarter of this year. The COVID-19 crisis brought the entire world to a standstill and organsations were forced to look out for alternative methods to continue with their business operations, it added.

In the third quarter of 2020, alternative modes of verification in the employment component in sectors like e-commerce and logistics, insurance, manufacturing and pharma have increased in comparison to the second quarter, the report said. The major forms of alternative mode of verification that have gained credibility in the last quarter are digital address, employment through PAN and TAN validation and employment through PF validation, it added.

In the third quarter, 36 out of every 100 address verifications were conducted through the alternative mode of verification, it stated. Even the traditional sectors like banking, IT, financial services, consulting and BPO have adapted to the alternative mode of verification in the address component, it added.

First Advantage India Head (Commercial) Amit Singh said, ''While companies continue to actively employ during this time and are working directly with people in remote locations, conducting background checks becomes an important task in the hiring process for organisations.'' He added that with an unprecedented crisis that has been brought out by COVID-19, organizations have responded by transforming operations and processes to provide innovative solutions. ''Recruitment is taking place through digitisation in most of the industries to keep up their businesses operational.''