The hospitality industry is known for its fast-paced, demanding nature. Employees are often client-facing, representing the brand and business. It’s essential that all employees undergo background checks to protect clientele, staff, and the organisation. 

Background checking safeguards a business and its people from risk, and assists employers in making informed decisions, creating a healthy culture, and reducing turnover.

Safeguard your business

In hotels and restaurants, some employees may have access to personal contact information, identity documents, and/or bank details. Others interact directly with clientele, representing your brand on the front line. Others still work behind the scenes, for example kitchen staff, housekeeping and security. 

In all roles, it’s essential to ensure staff are trustworthy in order to mitigate risks of theft, fraud, reputational damage and legal liability.

So how can you verify trustworthiness? One way to do this is through background checks. These verify the candidate’s personal claims, and allow employers to make informed hiring decisions.

• DBS Checks/Police Checks – these are often mandatory checks to identify an applicant’s criminal history. A previous offence may indicate violent tendencies or fraudulent behaviour. It should be noted, however, that the presence of a disclosable outcome does not necessarily preclude a candidate from being hired (the offence must have relevance to the prospective role to preclude them).

• Digital Referencing – verifying a candidate’s employment history with their past employers provides insight into the candidate’s honesty, and sheds light on their professional performance and manner.

• Right to Work Checks – ensuring candidates’ right to work before engaging them in employment is necessary from a compliance standpoint, and protects the business from legal liability. They’re easy to run with a Digital Right to Work check.

• Credit Checks – any staffer with access to or directly handling financial assets should be screened with a credit check

• Qualification Checks – these may be useful in numerous roles, from verifying a chef’s certification to a manager’s MBA. 

While these checks are useful in safeguarding the business and its assets, we also need to consider the protection of its most important asset – the people.

Safeguard your people

Hospitality environment of mile-long to-do lists where expectations are high – and so is staff turnover. On average, turnover in hospitality is 20-30% higher than other industries. This is due to a myriad of things; seasonality, low wages, instability* and implied employee expendability. Conducting the following checks provides insights into culture, and how to improve morale.

• ​​Pulse Surveys – are run to gather feedback from current employees about their satisfaction. They allow employers to identify gaps and opportunities for improvement.

• Exit Interviews – are run on staffers who are leaving/have recently left the company. Their purpose is to identify the cause of their departure and gather general feedback. This information can assist in designing strategies to reduce turnover and improve morale.

But won’t running all these checks cause delays and inconvenience?

It doesn’t have to. VETTING.com empowers businesses to streamline and simplify their background checking process through automation and integrations. We’ve designed a user-friendly interface, and simplified workflows in our checks to provide the best experience for all involved. 

If you’d like to see how VETTING.com could simplify your background checking, request a demo with us today!

Written by Mary Snowden.