First Advantage, a Symphony Technology Group (STG) company and a leading provider of talent acquisition and electronic data solutions in collaboration with NASSCOM hosted a panel discussion on ‘Minimizing Human Capital risk in recruitment - preventing fraud when hiring employees’ at the recently held NASSCOM HR Summit in Chennai.
 
The panel discussion focused on understanding the verification industry, the trends in the industry and discrepancies across employment, education, other areas and mitigating the risks associated to Human Capital Management. People make or break organizations and are the backbone to everything that constitutes the business. With fraudulent practices and white collar crimes rising steeply across industries, it has become the need of the hour to hire and retain the right people.
 
With suspect companies providing fake employment letters and discredited universities dispensing degrees, more stringent checks need to be in place to prevent fraud. Simple measures like putting employees through a thorough background check can mitigate the risk to a large extent. Screening acts as insurance and helps protect customers, employees, information, and the workplace. Managing Human Capital Risk also helps safeguard the brand of an organization. The implications of the risk can be substantial, from a hit to the revenue to a massive hit to the brand. Recent cases have made headlines in relation to employment fraud like the debacle of an online giant, with a discrepancy in the information provided by a CXO level employee.
 
The panel discussed that companies do talk about growth in recruitment fraud, but the talks are a small proportion and are not part of the bigger picture of hiring. And given the hiring imperative in the sector, there is a huge opportunity cost to not having people on board fast enough. They raised concerns on the fact that whether the economics really justify a lot of time and cost being spent on addressing the issue of recruitment fraud.While the industry talks of the importance of tackling and minimizing recruitment fraud, the metrics and incentives attached to recruitment continue to focus on volumes and time and do not address this element.
 
In principle, the panelists agreed upon the investment and value in background screening, not just to mitigate the risk but also to address the growing discrepancy in India with respect to faking resume details. If not managed, this has the potential to undermine India’s reputation in the global landscape. The highlight was on more that needs to be done to strengthen focus on the issueat all levels, including not just recruiters and vendors but also business leaders and hiring managers. Panelists also discussed building and leveraging the National Skills Registry (NSR), set up to help address many issues related to recruitment fraud.
 
The panel includedC Mahalingam, EVP & Global Chief People Officer, Symphony Services Corporation; Dr. Manoj Vaish, CEO, NSDL; Gaurav Ahluwalia, Managing Director – HR, J P Morgan;Priyanka Anand, Vice President – HR & Organization, Ericsson and Richard Lobo, AVP – HR, Infosys. It was moderated by Padmaja Alaganandan, ED, People and Change, PwC and was anchored by Navin Chugh, MD India and SVP International, First Advantage.