Is it possible to tracking and receive employment references in seconds?

Yes it is possible to and we are going to show you how?

Seeking employment references have long been a troublesome for employers, on-boarding teams and the wider employment screening industry. Employers have adopted a name, position, and employee number approach to employment references, and only confirm dates of employment and position to avoid any legal action.

Employment references must be accurate and must not be misleading and include irrelevant personal information. It is against the law for information known as 'protected characteristics' – to be used, whether providing, requesting, or checking references. Age, disability, race and gender reassignment are some of the protected characteristics. However, there are some exceptions for example when a protected characteristic is crucial to do a job.

It is a legal requirement to provide a regulatory reference under SMCR (Senior Managers & Certification Regime). This applies to the regulatory reference receiving firm when the candidate worked there within the previous six years of the request, and when the requesting firm is considering appointing the candidate to a senior manager, non-executive (NED) or certification role. Regulatory references are out of scope for this particular product. It is also out of scope for references under Airside Passes, BS7858 and BPSS (Baseline Personnel Security Standard).

Our employment reference product raises some thinking for regulators and policymakers to understand how to use new technology within the background screening frameworks. Only with this understanding, which needs to be grounded in business reality rather than theory, can regulators and policymakers properly take account of the impact they have on innovators.

What is happening in the market?

Let’s look at how employment references are requested and given.

1. The prospective employer will ask the job seeker to sign a consent letter.
2. The applicant will sign the consent letter and provide the details of the previous employment history. Some background screening companies will also the contact details of the HR/Line manager to expedite the process. However, the information supplied by the individual being checked should not be relied upon and should be verified independently.
3. A reference request along with the consent letter will be sent to the previous employer via an email or automated reference platform.
4. The HR will pull the details from the HRIS and confirm the dates of employment and position of the applicant. Many companies have there own templates and long disclaimers because of DPA/FOI concerns.

There are a lot of companies in the market claiming to make the employment reference process lightening fast. However, these material materials do not live up to one’s expectations. We are all well acquainted what happened at British Airways and EasyJet. 3000 new recruits were stuck in the reference process that were taking up to four months.

Another problem for the commercially available software for employment reference is that they are unbale to analyse employment history gaps.

What is Complygate employment reference powered by Open Banking?

Complygate employment reference product is powered by Open Banking which connects banks and building societies, third parties and technical providers – enabling them to simply and securely exchange data.

Open Banking is used to acquire salary data of the applicant and the Industry leading reliable salary market data is used to cross reference it against the position they have been working on. Employment references up to 7 years can be validated within seconds.