Background verification of IT employees in India

The companies spend a lot of money in hiring talented employees for good business and also invest a lot in their training and grooming.  It is expected that the employee offers his commitment and loyalty for the company and do his job with complete honesty. A bad hire not only affects the reputation of the company in the industry but also negatively impact the company’s relationship with its vendors and investors. As the English saying goes – “One rotten apple spoils the whole barrel”, a bad hire can negatively affect the remaining work force in the office. Employment screening and background check is very essential for maintaining workforce integrity and safety in the office. Now most of the companies in India opt for background verification of their new employees especially in IT industry. The only exceptions are small companies or in industry where the turnover rate is very high. The companies opt for selective screening.

Different companies have different process. For example,

– Cognizant: the HR will send email to bgvhelpdeskblr@cognizant.com  and everything will be done automatically. If you are joining from Accenture, then the HR may ask for Bank statement or Form 16 to verify your salary. Payslip alone will not suffice.

– TCS: The candidate will be required to fill up the BGC form BGC_TCS.pdf and send copies to the HR. Note TCS will call the canidate’s native parent’s, ex-manager and HR, so inform everyone that they may get a call and provide correct mobile number

– Accenture:  The Background verification will be done automatically

Many candidates provide false information to the companies to get hired, meeting the requirements in the job description and to negotiate higher salary. The HR professionals repeatedly have to encounter fake resumes in their hiring process. Hence, the employees have to furnish all the relevant documents at the time of joining so that the information provided can be verified for its authenticity. Employees are made to sign the agreement that their service will be terminated any point of time if the information provided by them turns out to be false.

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The background verification of the employees is done at various levels. The first level of screening is done to verify education verification. The next level relates to the previous work experience. Most of the lies are being told regarding previous employer information. The information sought from their previous employers relates to the time spent in the company, their compensation package and date of joining and relieving. Contacts of their references are also asked from the employees as they can get to know a great deal of personal information from them. ID proofs and driving license serves as the correct proof of their address, although some people often manage to forge such information. On specific cases, companies may have to go for police verification if they find information about the employee which could be a potential threat to other employees and interest of the companies and their image. But they are taken up very selectively and very carefully.

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Smaller companies conduct background check themselves via phone calls and mostly do a surface level screening. But, a thorough screening involves a lot of time and money. Hence, big companies hire third party to do the background verification of their employees. Third parties conduct background check at all levels. Various types of services offered by them are background check for residential address, character reference, employment record, academic record, criminal record, court record, medical record, drugs issues and also look if their name appears in the database of people with negative profiles.

Most of the IT companies make it mandatory for their employees to get registered to National Skills Registry (NSR) which is promoted by NASSCOM. NSR gets the background verification of its registered members through agencies who are empanelled with them.

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The decision to take any particular action against the employee, whose background check report has come negative, depends upon the discretion of the company. The company may decide upon the action depending upon the severity of the report and the potential threat to the company. Background check is not always foolproof. Many employees with not so clean background turn out to be the best performers and it cannot be guaranteed that the cleanest employee will not involve in wrong or fraudulent activities in future. Background reports with lighter errors are dealt as per the discretion of the reporting manager. Usually it is the manager who request for a thorough background check of any employee if he encounters any suspected activities.

Note: Some companies have banned few universities in Hyderabad region. Post the name of the company and University as a comment to share the information. Also request you to share your experience with BGC