16 June 2008
How important to your organisation is honesty in the employment relationship? Is dishonesty black and white or are there shades of grey? Some employers show zero tolerance whilst others, including it seems Sir Alan Sugar, may take a more lenient approach. What lengths are you prepared to go to, to catch out a dishonest employee? Some new methods are emerging which, believe it or not, sound just as far fetched as the lies people tell on their CV’s!
Last week, Lee McQueen was crowned the winner of hit TV reality show “The Apprentice”. The most remarkable thing about it is that during the interview process it emerged that he had lied on his C.V. Apparently, for Sir Alan at least, claiming that you attended university for two years when it was actually just four months is an excusable white lie, especially if you have proven your capabilities in other ways. Of course, the other school of thought is that Lee, a recruitment sales manager no less, should not have even made the final, let alone won. For them, when all is said and done, it was a deliberate attempt to deceive and was dishonest, undeserving of trust and employment. That’s certainly how employers at Balbirnie House, a restaurant in Fife, would have felt. Last month, the chef there was forced to resign over his false claims that he knew famous chefs, including Gordon Ramsay, and experience of working in their kitchens.
Is it really such big deal? Well, according to the Risk Advisory Group, it is. The employee screening specialists carried out a study on more than 3800 CV’s submitted in 2007 and found that over half of them contained inaccurate information. What’s more, compared to a similar study in 2006, candidates are increasingly likely to tell more than one fib at a time. The number of instances where three or more discrepancies were found rose by 9%. Could your organisation afford to overlook discrepancies in the dates of education and employment, fictitious qualifications or undeclared County Court Judgments? If not, you really ought to have a thorough process for vetting your candidates and/or verifying their details. Remember though, these activities must be carried out in accordance with the Employment Practices Data Protection Code of Practice.
Of course, if you feel it’s too time consuming to double check everything personally, you can always put your prospective employee to the test under a lie detector. There are companies in the UK providing this service to employers. One such company, Polygraph Security Services, offers pre-employment screening, which not only checks the validity of information submitted but can also expose other problems such as alcoholism or untoward financial pressure and debts. Asking these sorts of questions though will be an even bigger intrusion of privacy, which you need to justify by carrying out an impact assessment.
Unfortunately, dishonesty does not stop at the recruitment stage and employers are paying a huge cost for deceit during employment. Non genuine sickness absence is believed to be as high as 12%, costing employers £1.6 million a year. New technology developed by Capita and Digilog UK, which detects when people are lying, could soon be used to help employers control this cost. The Department for Work and Pensions have already successfully used the Voice Risk Analysis system to manage benefit fraud. Unlike a traditional polygraph, this lie detection system does a detailed analysis of the person’s voice during a telephone call and will identify if the caller is under pressure, suggesting that they are lying. This tool, if used correctly in the workplace, should prevent employees falsely calling in sick and identify possible circumstances to trigger the company’s normal absence management procedures.
Theft and fraud can also be the unwanted bi-product of employing a dishonest employee. Developments to help employers combat this risk are also under way. Action against Business Crime, an organisation working in partnership with the British Retail Consortium, has launched a new National Staff Dismissal Register. Employers who subscribe to the service are able to enter the personal details of former employees dismissed for, or suspected of, theft, fraud or damage or loss of property, and can use the database to check the status of all new applicants. Individuals can be entered on the database irrespective of whether formal charges have been brought against them. Organisations known to be involved are Harrods, Selfridges and Reed Managed Services. Companies who want to join must have sound data protection practices. Even so, there have still been some strong concerns over its use.
The truth of the matter is that, whatever checks are undertaken, applicants and employees should be forewarned and given an opportunity to make representations should any of the checks produce discrepancies. Guidance on the data protection implications can be can be found on the Information Commissioner’s website at www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk.